This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
VICTORIA has seen its first major neighbourhood shopping centre transaction for 2023, with a Chinese investor paying MPG Funds Management around $25 million for the Coles-anchored Village Lakeside Shopping Centre in Melbourne’s outer south east.
The 3,654 sqm centre, on 11,200 sqm at 9 Lakeside Boulevard in Pakenham, is supported by 10 non-discretionary specialty stores and provides over 180 car parks. The land is zoned Comprehensive Development Zone.
MPG held the asset in its MPG Retail Brands Property Trust.
“The sale price reflects an excellent outcome for our investors. The completion of the transaction builds upon our track record of executing on our clear investment strategies, including strategic divestments,” said Brett Gorman, director of MPG Funds Management.
The sale was brokered by JLL’s Stuart Taylor, Tom Noonan and MingXuan Li via a public expression of interest campaign. They said three of the last five Victorian neighbourhood shopping centres had been picked up by Chinese private investors.
“We are seeing a significant interest in shopping centre assets from Asian capital, particularly for metropolitan Melbourne and Sydney centres,” Li said.
“The buyer of Village Lakeside Shopping Centre is a new entrant buyer from mainland China, and is typical of many of the buyers who are actively bidding on our shopping centres at the moment.”
Taylor said the campaign “received one of the highest enquiry rates we’ve ever experienced for a neighbourhood shopping centre”.
“The activity demonstrates the significant depth of capital for neighbourhood shopping centres and that investors continue to see value in this highly defensive asset class.”
Whilst neighbourhood transaction volumes have been relatively subdued in the past 12 months, there has been significantly more liquidity at the upper end of the shopping centre market. There have been $1.36 billion of major retail investment transactions in Victoria in the past 12 months.
Among those were IP Generation’s recent $300 million purchase of Craigieburn Central, Haben and JY Group buying Forest Hill Chase for $256 million, Pelligra Group picking up Dandenong Plaza for $145 million, Forza Capital’s $72 million acquisition of an Epping large format retail centre, and Aware Super and Altis taking a 50% stake in Sunshine Marketplace for $66 million.
