Forza flips Melbourne homemaker centre
Forza Capital has more than doubled the value of a Melbourne homemaker centre held three and a half years and extended.
Epping Home & Life collected $117.7 million from a local private investor following a campaign launched in August.
It paid HMC Capital $54.25m in early 2023 on behalf of a syndicate.
At the time the complex contained 22,038 square metres, with rents about 30 per cent below market, and a 1.7-year weighted average lease expiry.
The net annual income was c$4.5m.
Forza obtained permission for an extension – it will now contains 26,550 sqm – signed on new tenants and struck fresh rental agreements.
When it was listed, the WALE was 7.8 years.
Annual income is $7.3m, with three per cent vacant.
JLL’s Stuart Taylor, Nick Willis and tom Noonan were the agents.
It is the priciest Victorian large format retail investment to sell this year.
Epping Home & Life
Epping Home & Life on 7.4 hectares at 560-650 High Street contains 783 car parks (continues below).
Occupiers include Chemist Warehouse, E&S Trading, Harvey Norman, Officeworks, Petbarn, Planet Fitness and TK Maxx.
Settlement is scheduled early next year, when new Rebel Sport and SuperCheap Auto tenancies are complete.
The sale price reflects a 6.2 per cent passing yield.
Apartment upside
The complex is opposite Pacific Epping, on 25ha also at the corner of Cooper St, zoned Activity Centre, able to accommodate 12 level buildings.
It also abuts a development by Jayland (that developer teamed with Forza to buy the two sites, covering a combined 9.1ha, in 2023).
“We acquired the asset below land value with a short WALE and under-rented income, and those were precisely the levers we set out to pull to generate value for our investors,” Forza Capital fund manager, Jeremy Gray, said of 560-650 High St.
The on sale is expected to deliver unitholders in the Forza Epping Fund an internal rate of return of c10pc per annum and equity about 1.4 times over the investment period, he added.
Epping is about 20 kilometres north of Melbourne’s CBD.
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