Futuro in c$210m play for Melbourne’s 235-251 Bourke Street
In a speculated c$210 million play, Futuro Capital with the backing of Baring Private Equity Asia, is acquiring Melbourne’s 235-251 Bourke Street – after separate negotiations with RMIT and the Chan family.
The opportunity arose in June when the college listed the 14 storey, 23,014 square metre office component with a five year leaseback.
Known as Building 108 within the school, this part recently went under offer for a rumoured $130m – about 10 per cent over guide.
Meanwhile, Futuro last month formalised an agreement with the Chan family to purchase the structure’s ground floor retail, or Tivoli Arcade, for a speculated price of more than $80m.
Controlling both the RMIT and Chan parts gives it a c3099 square metre central city site to replace with something substantially taller after 2025 (unless the school quits its lease earlier).
CBRE’s Kiran Pillai and Scott McGlone with Gross Waddell’s Danny Clark and Raoul Salter marketed Building 108 and are believed to be acting for the Chan family – but this could not be confirmed (story continues below).
The Australian was the first to report the deal, yesterday.
In May, Newmark Capital paid David Jones $121m for 299 Bourke St.
Just prior to that, JP Morgan offered another Melbourne CBD trophy; the former Australia on Collins now known as St Collins Lane is understood to be trading for c$120m, too.
Sydney based Futuro is co-run by Phillip George, also a director with diversified developer Potter George, and Potter Group, run with Gold Coast based former Villa World chief executive, John Potter.
Last week the latter entity sold a permit-ready 51-lot housing estate in Melbourne’s south east Officer to Henley for just under $8m, and a Green Wedge zoned parcel in Donnybrook, in the north, for a speculated $7m.
