BlackRock Leads Consortium Buying Panama Canal Ports for Nearly $23B | Global News Avenue

The ports around the Panama Canal are about to fall under U.S. ownership.

Blackstone, the US asset management giantBLKThe Hong Kong-based company announced Tuesday that a group of investors had agreed to buy ports on both sides of the Panama Canal from owner CK Hutchinson Holdings for nearly $23 billion.

BlackRock is its recently acquired global infrastructure partner, and Terminal Investment Limited has purchased a 90% stake in CK Hutchinson’s Panama Ports Company, which owns and operates the ports of Balboa and Cristobal in Panama.

according to Wall Street JournalBlackrock cited someone familiar with the matter, “a briefing on the deal to the Trump administration and Congress.”

“The agreement is a powerful example of the merger platform between Blackrock and GIP, and our ability to provide customers with differentiated investments,” said BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. “These world-class ports are driving global growth.”

The Trump administration’s China’s infrastructure revolves around the Panama Canal built by the United States, which the United States handed over to Panama in 1999, a threat to U.S. national security. “We gave it to Panama and we took it back,” President Donald Trump said in his inaugural speech.