Argosy sells MegaCentre property
Listed property fund Argosy Property has sold a portion of Porirua MegaCentre for $11.5 million.
Agents said the site at 2-10 Semple St, which includes Rebel Sports and Dennys Restaurant, was sold to ‘‘a substantial retail property investor’’.
The price was $100,000 below the valuation on Argosy’s website.
Argosy, which owns several Wellington properties, flagged last year that it would divest about $70m of non-core assets.
But it is also in buying mode, spending $59m in February on five industrial properties in Grenada and Seaview.
Chief executive Peter Mence said Argosy wanted to reduce the retail segment of its portfolio.
‘‘ Part of our strategy is to reduce our retail weighting in favour of industrial and commercial, so we’ve sold Waitakere MegaCentre at $45m and Porirua MegaCentre most recently.’’
Argosy’s part of the MegaCentre has a shared car park and seven retail tenancies covering a net lettable area of 7046 square metres.
Other tenants are Reduced to Clear, Hardings Furniture, Godfreys, NZ Post and Greenmark Furniture. It provides a combined annual rental of about $1,058,000 plus GST.
Before the sale, Argosy had owned the site for 15 years. It sold another chunk of the MegaCentre in 2013 to Mitre 10 operator Martyn Lockyer for $16.2m, who in turn halved it and sold off the Spotlight/Uncle Bills Building and 10 Tutu Pl. The main part of the centre, anchored by The Warehouse and Briscoes, has changed hands several times.
It was most recently bought from an Australian investor in 2013 by Nelson- based investor Gaire Thompson for more than $30m.
Mence said Porirua had become a moribund market.
‘‘The roading changes haven’t helped. It always used to draw from outside its primary catchment, but with increasing competition through the Wellington area, it’s somewhat less so.
‘‘That is shown in the kind of tenant and the faster turnover. They tend to be more focused on the immediate catchment, as opposed to a regional reach.’’
The deal was brokered by Carl Hastings of Paul Hastings and Co, and Bruce Catley, of CBRE.