NEW YORK CITY-The Blackstone Group will take over the management of a $2-billion portfolio of Asian real estate investments originally established by Merrill Lynch, the Financial Times reported Monday. Although Blackstone’s deal with Bank of America reportedly calls for it to help unwind the Merrill portfolio and not to acquire any assets from it, the FT says the agreement will help the private equity giant, headquartered at 345 Park Ave., ramp up its Asian presence.

For its part, BofA says sponsoring real investment “will not be a core business” going forward, according to the FT. In a letter to investors obtained by the FT, Blackstone wrote, “We have seen stabilization in our high-quality office portfolios and experienced a solid recovery in cash flow in the hotel assets in our portfolios. As a result, these improvements led to our first asset valuation increases in several years.”

The deal, which the Wall Street Journal says is expected to close in September, follows Citigroup’s sale of its global real estate investment unit to Apollo Management LP, in a deal first reported by Bloomberg in March. Blackstone declined to comment on the BofA agreement, according to the FT. Click here for the complete article.