I Squared Pushes Southeast Asia Storage Build-Out with Cella Deal

I Squared Capital, a Miami-based infrastructure-focussed private equity firm managing more than $60 Bn in assets, has agreed to acquire Cella, an Indonesian industrial logistics and cold storage platform. This is the firm’s first investment in Indonesia. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary conditions, but financial terms have not been disclosed.

The PE firm’s move into Indonesia follows the platform-building template it used in Europe. I Squared formed Cube Cold Europe in 2022 around three acquisitions — Frigo Breda in the Netherlands, Northfreeze in Belgium and UK-based Pulleyn.

That broader storage-infrastructure strategy reached Southeast Asia in October 2024, when I Squared agreed to acquire Philippine Coastal Storage & Pipeline Corp., the country’s largest independent import terminal for liquid fuels. In June 2025, it followed with a deal for a controlling stake in Royale Cold Storage, the first step in building an institutional cold storage platform in the Philippines.

The Indonesia deal is I Squared’s third storage-sector transaction in Southeast Asia in less than two years.

Cella was founded in March 2022 by Warburg Pincus-backed NWP Property, Japan’s CRE and Indonesian logistics executive Bonny Setiawan. Warburg Pincus has indirect exposure to Cella through its 53.78% stake in NWP Property, according to an IFC project disclosure.

The platform had about 200,000 sq. m. of net leasable area under construction in 2023 and now operates five facilities totalling 231,000 sq. m. across Greater Jakarta and Surabaya. Its tenants include e-commerce companies, third-party logistics providers, retailers and consumer goods businesses, while its portfolio also features a built-to-suit facility for DHL Supply Chain.

Commercial real estate services firm JLL said in an early-2026 note that Indonesia’s warehouse stock had tripled over the preceding decade while vacancy remained extremely tight. Over the same period, the sector attracted sovereign wealth funds, insurers, private equity firms and other institutional investors.

Indonesia’s e-commerce gross merchandise value reached an estimated $71 Bn in 2025, according to the Google-Temasek-Bain e-Conomy SEA report, adding to logistics demand generated by third-party providers, retailers, consumer-goods companies and manufacturers. Together with the tight vacancy JLL recorded, that growth helps explain I Squared’s decision to acquire an operating platform rather than enter the market through a single greenfield asset.

Harsh Agrawal, senior partner at I Squared, said the firm sees Cella as a foundation to build a market-leading logistics and cold storage platform in Indonesia. Bonny Setiawan, who will remain Cella’s chief executive, said I Squared’s infrastructure experience made it the right partner to expand into cold storage at scale.

I Squared has deployed the platform-building approach before, but Indonesia is a market in which it has not previously operated and one where global institutional capital is already active. So, the Cella deal will test whether the model used in the Philippines and Europe can succeed a third time.