This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
CANADA’S largest insurance group, Manulife Financial, is believed to have acquired the Myer headquarters in Melbourne’s Docklands for almost $300 million, continuing a recent run of central commercial assets transactions with big price tags.
The 14-level 800 Collins Street office building was put on the market by joint owners Savills Investment Management and Lendlease’s Australian Prime Property Fund Commercial via an expressions of interest campaign that closed at the beginning of this month.
It encompasses 28,619sqm of office space and 874 sqm of retail space, and car parking over two levels.
Troubled department store giant Myer, which has suffered from the struggling retail environment and public shareholder criticism this year, occupied the entire building before relinquishing 9,744 sqm of space mid-year as part of cost-cutting measures.
Latitude Financial Services – formerly GE Money – signed a decade-long lease over the empty space, taking the building’s WALE to circa six years.
The tower had been purpose-built for Myer in 2010.
Manulife Financial has made the purchase via its property arm, Manulife Real Estate, which has reportedly earmarked more than $500 million for investment into Australian commercial property.
Last week, Singaporean fund manager TrustCapital Advisors confirmed the $727 million sale of a five-asset portfolio of office towers along the major eastern seaboard capitals, including three in Melbourne.
PA Realty, a joint venture between MEC and CLSA Real Estate, picked up the 17,337 sqm A-grade 850 Collins Street and the recently refurbished 16,152 sqm 575 Bourke Street in the CBD’s west end for $156.1 million and $140.2 million respectively.
AMP Capital paid $160.5 million for the upgraded and fully leased 468 La Trobe Street tower of 19,864 sqm to round out the trio.
At the other end of the CBD, the wealthy Schwartz family sold off a portfolio of assets that included Melbourne’s oldest pub, the 167 year-old Duke of Wellington and an adjoining office tower at 2 Russell Street, and the 65-room Adina Hotel at 88 Flinders Street in two separate transactions for a combined $92 million.
On the city fringe, a joint venture between Singaporean’s Roxy-Pacific and Tong Eng Group’s Teo Tong Lim, known as TE2 Roxy Australia, paid $74.14 million to Myer Family Investments for the 9,854 sqm 312 St Kilda Road office building.
That came with childcare group Little Lane Early Centre sensationally outmuscling interstate, Asian and American players to secure a Fishermans Bend site with approval for 1,004 residential apartments across four buildings.
The group purchased the 68 Buckhurst Street property with the intention of building the “world’s best early learning centre in the world’s most liveable city”, despite the permit, which also includes 697 car parking spaces, 12 retail units and offices in addition to the residential component, across a combined 75,545 sqm.
Australian Property Journal
