IN Brief:
- I Squared is acquiring five occupied logistics and cold storage assets in Greater Jakarta and Surabaya.
- Cella’s current portfolio covers approximately 231,000m² and serves e-commerce, logistics, retail, and consumer goods customers.
- The buyer plans to expand the platform to about 1.5 million m² over four to five years.
I Squared Capital has agreed to acquire Indonesian logistics and cold storage operator Cella, giving the infrastructure investor an established five-site platform from which it plans substantial expansion.
The transaction covers operational properties in Greater Jakarta and Surabaya with approximately 231,000m² of net leasable space. The facilities serve customers in e-commerce, third party logistics, retail, and consumer goods.
I Squared is buying the company from NWP Property and Japanese logistics property specialist CRE. Financial terms have not been disclosed, and completion is expected during the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.
The acquisition is intended to provide the foundation for a much larger Indonesian platform. I Squared plans to increase Cella’s warehouse and cold storage footprint to about 1.5 million m² over the next four to five years, more than six times its current size.
Expansion is expected to combine new development with selective acquisitions. Additional capacity is planned around existing operations in Jakarta and Surabaya, while other major cities, including Medan, are under consideration.
Customer requirements will influence the location and configuration of the next sites. Conventional warehouse demand and temperature-controlled demand do not necessarily develop in the same markets, while cold storage requires more specialised building services, maintenance, and energy infrastructure.
Harsh Agrawal, senior partner at I Squared Capital, said Indonesia was “reaching an inflection point” in the development of its industrial logistics and cold storage sector. The investor expects domestic consumption, e-commerce growth, and the diversification of manufacturing activity across Asia to support further demand.
Cella was founded in 2022 and has assembled five modern assets in Indonesia’s two largest logistics regions. The portfolio is close to full occupancy, giving I Squared an operating business with existing tenants rather than a speculative development pipeline.
Occupied properties provide immediate customer relationships and operating income, while allowing future investment to be phased around demonstrated demand. The buyer can also choose between construction and acquisition rather than depending on a single route to scale.
Cold storage adds costs and operating requirements that do not apply to a conventional dry warehouse. Temperature-controlled facilities need specialist refrigeration, monitoring, maintenance, backup arrangements, and disciplined management of loading doors and temperature zones.
The commercial case therefore depends on utilisation and throughput as much as the amount of space developed. An expensive temperature-controlled building creates little value if demand is intermittent, poorly located, or insufficient to support the energy and maintenance costs.
Indonesia’s geography strengthens the case for a regional network but complicates execution. Greater Jakarta is the country’s largest consumption and distribution centre, while Surabaya is an important gateway for East Java and eastern Indonesia.
Expansion into other cities would extend Cella’s reach, but would also require the company to reproduce service standards and technical capability across a more dispersed estate. Land availability, power reliability, permitting, road access, and local logistics capacity will affect how quickly additional facilities can be delivered.
The deal reflects a wider movement of infrastructure capital into logistics property, particularly where real estate can be combined with specialist operating services. I Squared already has exposure to supply chain and cold storage businesses through WOW Logistics in the United States, Cube Cold in Europe, and Royal Cold Storage in the Philippines.
Experience from those investments may help with procurement, engineering standards, and operating systems, although Indonesia will require its own development model. Customer profiles, infrastructure conditions, land markets, and distribution patterns differ substantially between regions.
For customers, the immediate question is whether institutional ownership produces more capacity in the right locations, with consistent technical standards and dependable operations. A target of 1.5 million m² is sizeable, but performance will be judged site by site through occupancy, service levels, and the ability to add cold storage without creating underused infrastructure.
Completion of the acquisition would give I Squared an occupied platform and a defined growth plan. The more difficult task will be converting that capital programme into facilities that match customer demand across one of Asia’s most geographically complex logistics markets.
