– Establishes Growth Platform in the Middle East and India –
Left to right: Abhishek Shah, Ajay Shah, George Chappelle, Mathew Moore
ATLANTA, GA and DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, March 13, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Americold Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: COLD) (“Americold” or the “Company”), the world’s largest publicly traded REIT focused on the ownership, operation, acquisition, and development of temperature-controlled warehouses, announced today a strategic investment into RSA Cold Chain in Dubai. At close, Americold’s investment is $3.9 million for the Company’s share (49%) of RSA Cold Chain equity.
This partnership will provide a scalable, investable operating platform for market entry and expansion in the Middle East and India. RSA Cold Chain is an established cold storage operator in Dubai that began operations in 2017 and is a subsidiary of the parent company RSA Global. Americold will take a minority ownership position in RSA Cold Chain with immediate plans to expand locally, connect RSA to its global network, and pursue strategic development opportunities in the Middle East and surrounding markets. RSA Cold Chain is led by Abhishek Shah, who brings significant value to Americold as a strategic partner to establish a new presence in this critical global market.
Abhishek Shah, RSA Cold Chain’s Co-Founder & CEO, commented, “We are absolutely thrilled to partner with Americold, a global player that can connect the world’s food production markets to our region with a seamless service at origin and destination. We are excited to create a regional brand across our markets that our customers can trust.”
George Chappelle, Americold’s Chief Executive Officer, stated “Our partnership with RSA Cold Chain, combined with our recently announced partnership with DP World, provides us an ideal platform to provide supply chain solutions and cold storage capacity in the Middle East and India. These relationships highlight why Americold is a global leader and preferred partner in the temperature-controlled storage warehousing and logistics industry. We are excited to bring our innovative solutions to the region and support our mission to help our customers feed the world.”
RSA Cold Chain Industrial Property
About Americold
Americold is the world’s largest publicly traded REIT focused on the ownership, operation, acquisition and development of temperature-controlled warehouses. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Americold owns and/or operates 242 temperature-controlled warehouses, with approximately 1.4 billion refrigerated cubic feet of storage, in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and South America. Americold’s facilities are an integral component of the supply chain connecting food producers, processors, distributors and retailers to consumers.
About RSA Cold Chain
RSA Cold Chain is a HACCP and ISO 22000 certified cold storage arm of RSA Global, a digital supply chain and e-commerce logistics specialist providing global e-commerce companies with seamless access to the booming regional markets of the Middle East, North Africa, and India.
RSA Cold Chain is dedicated to providing reliable end-to-end cold & frozen 3PL solutions to meet the growing demand of the food industry in the UAE and the MENA especially as the surge in population and food consumption has been brought to the region.
Since it started its operations in 2017, RSA Cold Chain has received numerous awards and recognition for its sophisticated infrastructure and operational design serving sectors from packaged food, fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy products, and frozen foods. www.rsa.global.
Forward-Looking Statements
This document contains statements about future events and expectations that constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on our beliefs, assumptions and expectations of our future financial and operating performance and growth plans, taking into account the information currently available to us. These statements are not statements of historical fact. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially from the expectations of future results we express or imply in any forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on such statements. Factors that could contribute to these differences include the following: the impact of supply chain disruptions, including, among others, the impact on labor availability, raw material availability, manufacturing and food production; construction materials and transportation; uncertainties and risks related to public health crises, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; adverse economic or real estate developments in our geographic markets or the temperature-controlled warehouse industry; rising interest rates and inflation in operating costs, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; general economic conditions; labor and power costs; labor shortages; risks associated with the ownership of real estate generally and temperature-controlled warehouses in particular; acquisition risks, including the failure to identify or complete attractive acquisitions or the failure of acquisitions to perform in accordance with projections and to realize anticipated cost savings and revenue improvements; our failure to realize the intended benefits from our recent acquisitions, and including synergies, or disruptions to our plans and operations or unknown or contingent liabilities related to our recent acquisitions; risks related to expansions of existing properties and developments of new properties, including failure to meet targeted completion dates and budgeted or stabilized returns within expected time frames, or at all, in respect thereof; a failure of our information technology systems, systems conversions and integrations, cybersecurity attacks or a breach of our information security systems, networks or processes could cause business disruptions or loss of confidential information; risks related to privacy and data security concerns, and data collection and transfer restrictions and related foreign regulations; defaults or non-renewals of significant customer contracts, including as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; uncertainty of revenues, given the nature of our customer contracts; our failure to obtain necessary outside financing; risks related to, or restrictions contained in, our debt financings; decreased storage rates or increased vacancy rates; risks related to current and potential international operations and properties; difficulties in expanding our operations into new markets, including international markets; risks related to the partial ownership of properties, including as a result of our lack of control over such investments and the failure of such entities to perform in accordance with projections; our failure to maintain our status as a REIT; possible environmental liabilities, including costs, fines or penalties that may be incurred due to necessary remediation of contamination of properties presently or previously owned by us; financial market fluctuations; actions by our competitors and their increasing ability to compete with us; changes in applicable governmental regulations and tax legislation, including in the international markets; geopolitical conflicts, such as the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine; additional risks with respect to the addition of European operations and properties; changes in real estate and zoning laws and increases in real property tax rates; our relationship with our associates, including the occurrence of any work stoppages or any disputes under our collective bargaining agreements and employment related litigation; liabilities as a result of our participation in multi-employer pension plans; uninsured losses or losses in excess of our insurance coverage; the potential liabilities, costs and regulatory impacts associated with our in-house trucking services and the potential disruptions associated with our use of third-party trucking service providers to provide transportation services to our customers; the cost and time requirements as a result of our operation as a publicly traded REIT; changes in foreign currency exchange rates; the impact of anti-takeover provisions in our constituent documents and under Maryland law, which could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace our directors and affect the price of our common stock, $0.01 par value per share, of our common stock; and the potential dilutive effect of our common stock offerings. Words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “continues,” “estimates,” “expects,” “goal,” “objectives,” “intends,” “may,” “opportunity,” “plans,” “potential,” “near-term,” “long-term,” “projections,” “assumptions,” “projects,” “guidance,” “forecasts,” “outlook,” “target,” “trends,” “should,” “could,” “would,” “will” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements included in this document include, among others, statements about our plans and expectations regarding refinancing our CMBS debt, use of proceeds and hedging strategies, including entering into interest rate swaps to reduce floating rate debt exposure to historical levels. We qualify any forward-looking statements entirely by these cautionary factors. Other risks, uncertainties and factors, including those discussed under “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 and in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2022, could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements we make. We assume no obligation to update or revise these forward- looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
Contacts:
Americold Realty Trust
Investor Relations
Telephone: 678-459-1959
Email: investor.relations@americold.com
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