(Reuters) – Blackstone Real Estate on Wednesday entered into an agreement to take Retail Opportunity Investments Corp private in an all-cash transaction valued at about $4 billion, including debt.

Reuters reported on Sunday that the alternative asset manager was in advanced talks for the acquisition of the company, which owns strip malls across the United States.

Owners of strip malls, pharmacy chains and retail stores have managed to pass on increased costs from high inflation to consumers over the past year, benefiting landlords like ROIC.

The real estate investment trust has raised rents, achieving a 13.8% increase in same-space new leases during the third quarter, according to its most recent quarterly report.

Blackstone will acquire ROIC, which owns more than 90 grocery-anchored shopping centers, for $17.50 a share. The offer represents a premium of 5.5% to the ROIC stock’s last close.

Shares of ROIC, which has a market capitalization of $2.13 billion, gained 4.3% on Wednesday. They have risen 18.2% so far this year, underperforming some other real estate investment trusts and making it an attractive target for buyout firms like Blackstone.

Blackstone is one of the world’s largest investors in real estate, with $336.1 billion in assets in the sector as of the end of June.

Earlier this year, it signed a deal to acquire Apartment Income REIT for $10 billion.

The ROIC deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2025.

(Reporting by Ananta Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)