GPT acquiring Ascot industrial, office portfolio
The GPT Group is paying Ascot Capital $681.7 million for a portfolio of 24 investments.
Containing a total lettable area of over 160,000 square metres, the deal includes 23 warehouses and a Canberra office, 14 Mort Street.
The sale price reflects a 4.3 per cent yield.
The blended Weighted Average Lease Expiry is about 9.3 years for the warehouses; the office is 4.7 years.
The deal is in due diligence with GPT stressing it may not be completed.
CBRE’s Chris O’Brien with Morgan Stanley’s Tim Church are representing Ascot.
The portfolio
Just over 70pc of the area within the 28-property portfolio Ascot listed is occupied by listed companies – amongst them Asahi Breweries, Genuine Parts Company (GPC), Probiotec (pictured, top) and Tritium.
Bega, Cope Sensitive Freight and Tasman Logistics Services also lease facilities.
The offices – which contribute to more than a quarter of the revenue – are rented to the federal and NSW governments and Brisbane City Council.
Underbidders are speculated to include Allianz, Charter Hall, in partnership with ISPT, Capitaland, Centuria, ESR, Lendlease, Manulife, Mirvac and Nuveen.
In March, GPT and QuadReal established a trust to acquire distribution centres, with an initial investment of $800m (story continues below).
That entity, the GPT QuadReal Logistics Trust, is not believed to be behind the Ascot Capital purchase.
Another major industrial portfolio
Last week, Lendlease confirmed it was paying Mirvac $161m for three east industrial assets – two, in Melbourne, abutting existing portfolio assets.
In February, LOGOS agreed to pay Qube $1.67 billion for the multi-building Moorebank Logistics Park.
That buyer later called in co-investment partners – Australian Super, AXA IM, Ivanhoe Cambridge and TCorp.
Four months ago, ESR, backed by GIC, spent $3.4b on a portfolio of industrial investments – then an additional $400m on an associated management business.
The vendor of those properties, Blackstone, also recently sold a 90pc stake in 20 assets – forming the so-called Fife portfolio – to PGIM and Manulife.
That price – $850m – reflected a 4.5pc yield.
This story was edited in October to reflect the specific purchase price GPT is paying Ascot.
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