Ascendas pays AMP $288.9m for Macquarie Park campus office complex
Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust (Ascendas Reit) is spending $288.9 million on another Macquarie Park commercial investment.
The campus complex at 1-5 Thomas Holt Drive is 250 metres from the MQX4 office which the landlord acquired from Frasers and Winten in September, and is due for completion in two years.
Its latest asset was purchased from AMP Capital which renovated five years ago.
Developed in 1989 it contains 39,370 square metres of lettable area spread across three standalone buildings, designed around three tennis courts, a swimming pool, barbecue area, café and 1107 car parks.
Fully leased but 93 per cent occupied, the biggest tenants are BSA Limited, Foxtel and Metcash.
The buyer and seller have settled on a 5.9pc yield (dropping to 5.6pc for Ascendas Reit factoring in $22.6m in costs and fees).
The price also reflects a 17pc premium to book value.
To settle, it needs Foreign Investment Review Board approval.
Parent CapitaLand is worth $132b
With the acquisition of 1-5 Thomas Holt Dve Ascenda Reit controls five Australian suburban office assets.
The portfolio’s exposure to Sydney stock adjusts to 48pc. Its Weighted Average Lease Expiry increases slightly from 4.3 years to 4.4 (story continues below).
The trust will hold 198 assets – nearly half in Singapore and 37 in Australia – worth a total S$12.95 billion (A$12.86b).
Ascendas Reit is one of six listed CapitaLand subsidiaries. The parent’s portfolio, more than 600 properties in 220 cities, is valued at S$133.3b ($132.1b).
Elsewhere in Macquarie Park
In September, another listed Singapore group, Keppel REIT, paid Goodman $306m for Macquarie Park’s Pinnacle Office Park.
Four months ago Johnson & Johnson offloaded a low-rise office on an enormous site to Stockland, which will amalgamate it with the M_Park estate it is constructing next door – and build the occupier a replacement headquarters.
MQX4, with 17,753 of A-grade area over nine storeys, cost $167.2m and is taking shape on a site which was the long-time Dick Smith base.
Frasers and Winten are intending four offices as part of its carbon neutral replacement, ‘Macquarie Exchange’: three will rise 12 levels and the other, 16.
Ascendas could longer term consider building into the airspace of 1-5 Thomas Holt Drive which has a 4.5 year WALE.
Macquarie Park, 13 kilometres north west of the city, is a popular location for electronics, pharmaceutical and technology businesses.
A Metro Rail stop is earmarked to open there in 2024.
