This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
DEXUS Property Group is moving forward with its strategy to get out of the retail property sector.
The property group yesterday said it plans to sell its 50% stake in the Westfield Whitford City Shopping Centre, which is jointly owns with Westfield.
The centre was last valued at $270 million and Dexus recently signed a lease with upmarket retailer David Jones to expand the existing centre to accommodate the department store.
Whitford City is a regional shopping centre located in Hillarys, 24kms north-west from the Perth CBD. The centre accommodates five major, three mini-major tenants and 250 specialty retailers and 19 office tenancies.
Since April this year, Dexus has embarked on a two year non-core property sales program to sell $600 million.
To date the company has sold approximately $108 million of assets in Australia, comprising $55 million from the sale of an office property and $53 million from the sale of 17 industrial lots across six properties.
Meanwhile Dexus has leased 160,000 sqm of space across its commercial property portfolio during the quarter, but occupancy decreased slightly from 91.5% to 90.8%.
Dexus said cautious sentiment is now characterising property markets.
The Dexus office portfolio occupancy is 96.5%, remaining well above the PCA average of 91.7% as at July 2009. The office leasing market remains challenging with tenant demand weak in most Australian CBDs.
Leases and heads of agreement were signed for over 18,000 sqm in 34 transactions to 30 September 2009. The group reported an average net face rental increase of 11.5%.
Incentives were granted on 29 deals with an average tenant incentive of 17.8% gross rent across all transactions.
Australian Property Journal
