Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and sale-leaseback investment firm Oak Street have agreed to pay $14 billion in cash for STORE Capital, a single-tenant, net lease REIT with 3,000 properties. The deal will give STORE, whose tenant base is local and regional retailers and manufacturers, more access to private capital to grow, said president and CEO Mary Fedewa.

The transaction would close in the first quarter, pending shareholder approval and a window during which STORE can seek other buyers. Morgan Stanley equity research executive director Ronald Kamdem wrote in a note to investors that Morgan Stanley doesn’t expect other buyers to surface.

Scott Merkle, managing partner of sale-leaseback specialist SLB Capital Advisors, said: “In the normally staid net lease real estate world, this is a monster transaction that, if consummated, will result in the take-private of the third-largest publicly traded net lease REIT. GIC and Oak Street are acquiring one of the most prolific sale-leaseback investors that regularly deploys well north of $1 billion a year.”

The deal represents a cap rate of 6.2%, which is 80 to 100 basis points lower than the cap rates at which STORE has been buying assets, according to Kamdem.

He cited economy of scale and cost of capital among the reasons the deal makes sense, and SLB noted that Oak Street is one of the largest net lease investors. It positioned itself for more opportunistic investments with a capital injection when Blue Owl acquired it in December. SLB also pointed out that GIC is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world and has been active in U.S. real estate. It started in U.S. net lease last year, forming a joint venture with RPT Realty that was announced in 2019.

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