SYDNEY — Sydney-based DEXUS Property Group has sold a 65-property industrial portfolio, located in the central U.S., to Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII (NYSE: BX) for $770 million. The sale is the largest single industrial real estate portfolio transaction in the country so far this year.

“The settlement of the central portfolio is a good result and allows our U.S. team to focus on the remaining West Coast portfolio and to leverage our local industrial real estate management and development enterprise going forward,” says Darren Steinberg, CEO of DEXUS.

DEXUS now owns and manages 24 industrial properties in the U.S., valued at approximately $550 million, which total 6.8 million square feet. Additionally, the company manages $200 million in properties on behalf of U.S. third-party clients.

“Since being established in June 2010, DEXUS’s U.S. team has assumed direct asset management control of the West Coast portfolio and taken an active role in leasing and managing the central portfolio,” Steinberg says. “This active approach resulted in significant improvement in occupancy of the central portfolio from 79 percent to 90 percent prior to its sale.”

Included in the sale are three recently completed Class A distribution facilties leased to Whirlpool Corp. Eastdil Secured’s Los Angeles office represented the seller in the transaction.

Blackstone’s stock price closed at $12.02 per share on Monday, down from $15.42 a year earlier.

— Savannah Duncan