Blue Owl Capital agreed to acquire Sila Realty Trust in an all-cash transaction valuing the healthcare REIT at $2.4 billion, taking the publicly traded vehicle private after two years of share price compression. The deal, announced Monday, values Sila at $14.50 per share, a 23% premium to Friday's close but still 38% below the REIT's net asset value at the end of 2021. Blue Owl will absorb Sila's 237 medical office buildings across 31 states, adding 4.2 million square feet of physician office space to its real estate credit platform.
Sila has traded poorly since its 2021 SPAC debut, caught between rising rates and questions about tenant demand in suburban medical office. Shares peaked at $23.80 in early 2022, then drifted as the REIT struggled to refinance floating-rate debt and maintain occupancy above 88%. Management cited difficulty accessing capital markets at reasonable terms. Blue Owl, which manages $239 billion in permanent capital vehicles, has spent eighteen months building a healthcare property thesis through its GP Capital Solutions and real estate credit desks. This is the firm's fourth medical office acquisition since September 2023, following smaller portfolios in Florida, Texas, and the Carolinas totaling $1.1 billion.
The transaction reflects two structural shifts allocators are tracking. First, the arbitrage between public REIT valuations and private real estate fund marks has widened to levels not seen since 2009. Sila traded at 0.62x book value before the announcement; Blue Owl's real estate funds mark comparable assets at 0.91x to 0.98x, creating immediate accretion for GP stakes and co-investment LPs. Second, the deal confirms that alternative managers with permanent capital vehicles are replacing traditional REIT acquirers as the natural buyers of distressed public property companies. Blackstone, Brookfield, and KKR have completed nine take-private REIT deals since January 2023, totaling $47 billion. Blue Owl's entry into this pattern suggests the bid-ask spread between public and private real estate has stabilized at a level that supports patient capital deployment.
Operators should watch for Blue Owl's treatment of Sila's $780 million in floating-rate debt, which matures between Q4 2025 and Q2 2026. The firm will likely refinance into fixed-rate instruments through its insurance balance sheet partnerships, locking in spreads before the Fed's next move. Allocators with exposure to Blue Owl's real estate credit funds will see modest NAV accretion as the portfolio is marked to acquisition cost, not Sila's depressed public valuation. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2025, subject to shareholder approval and regulatory clearance. Sila shareholders will vote at a special meeting tentatively scheduled for late June.
Blue Owl now controls $14.7 billion in healthcare real estate across its credit and equity platforms, making it the seventh-largest non-traded owner of medical office properties in the United States. The firm has not disclosed whether it will continue Sila's strategy of developing new medical office buildings or shift to acquisition-only growth.