Retail portfolio tipped to fetch A$100m
PARTIES ASSOCIATED with Australian construction group Ganellen will sell three shopping centres in Australia and New Zealand, worth more than $100 million, including Quay Street Village, based near Auckland’s waterfront.
The retail portfolio is not on Ganellen’s balance sheet, but is owned by associated companies of some of the group’s directors. Ganellen wants to buy larger assets to capitalise on its core construction business. The shopping centres have expansion potential but not on the scale the construction group is looking for.
Privately owned Ganellen, which is building more than A$500 million of projects for clients such as Australand Property Group and Woolworths, wants to reinvest proceeds into larger assets to feed its construction pipeline.
Three of four centres within the portfolio will be sold.
Quay Street Village is anchored by Countdown, a Woolworths brand, on a full net lease. The site was bought from Charter Hall in 2012 when it decided to divest its New Zealand supermarket property portfolio.
Charter Hall reportedly paid $28 million for the property in 2007.
The largest centre is Kiama Village in NSW, which has a full net lease to Woolworths for 20 years, signed last year. The Woolworths store will get a $6.5 million refurbishment, to be completed in October. Warners Bay Village, also in NSW, is anchored by Coles with a 20-year lease expiring in 2021. The centre was refurbished last year.
The portfolio has a combined lettable area across the three assets of 14,567 square metres with an overall weighted average lease expiry of 8.2 years. More than 60 per cent of the total passing gross income is from supermarkets.
The assets can be acquired individually or as a portfolio.