This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
GROWTHPOINT Properties Australia has offloaded four Victorian industrial assets to Singaporean-listed Mapletree Logistics Trust for $142.2 million.
The properties comprise a combined gross floor area 103,517sqm and total land area of 362,230sqm and are fully leased, headlined by the Woolworths regional distribution centre in the New South Wales border town of Albury-Wodonga.
The 28 Bilston Drive property sold at a $68.2 million purchase consideration and has a GFA of 57,440sqm, and sold subject to a 300-year ground lease to the company.
Mapletree adds the asset to its Choles Chilled Distribution Centre in Sydney’s Eastern Creek, which it purchased last year for $253 million on a 5.6% passing yield.
The other sales comprised of sites in Melbourne’s west. An 8,871sqm Laverton North facility, at 101-103 William Angliss Drive, is leased to transport company Scott’s Refrigerated Freightways, and accounted for $28.1 million of the total sum.
213-215 Robinsons Road in Ravenhall has a GFA of 21,092sqm and is leased to Fuji Xerox Businessforce, and had a purchase consideration of $27.9 million.
A Derrimut property of 16,114sqm, at 365 Fitzgerald Road, is leased to Bridgestone Australia and transacted at $18 million.
The properties have a weighted average lease expiry by revenue of 6.4 years, and at June 30 returned an annual income of $11.95 million.
Mapletree said the acquisition is in line with its investment objective to deliver regular and stable distributions.
This is Mapletree’s third investment in Australia and increases its portfolio to nine properties in the country, raising its Australian portfolio from 6.1% to 9.0% of its gross revenue base.
Growthpoint subsequently announced an increase in distribution guidance for the 2017 financial year to 21.5 cents per security and distribution for the six months to the end of 2016 at 10.6 cents per security. Balance sheet gearing was reduced to 43.7%.
It has also entered into a new $150 million banking facility to fund the cash portion of its acquisition of the former GPT Metro Office Fund, and has replace the fund’s previous $145 million bank facility with two new separate bank facilities. Total debt facilities are now at $1.675 billion. Growthpoint has entered into two new interest rate swaps with a face value of $125 million, replacing two previous interest rate swaps from the fund of a total of $100 million at a cost of $6.6 million.
Australian Property Journal
