Roberts Co picks up five Melbourne Probuild projects
Roberts Co has acquired five Melbourne projects from failed developer Probuild.
Mooted last month, the deal gives the Sydney group control of a Victorian development pipeline for the first time – with work on two major buildings yet to start.
It also provides a local workforce, with 152 permanent employees.
Ex-Probuild managing director, Luke Stambolis, will head Roberts Co’s local operation out of part of the collapsed company’s 580 St Kilda Road headquarters – an office for which it has naming rights.
The transaction comes two months since Probuild’s South African parent, Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon Limited, put the subsidiary into administration via Deloitte.
Another arm, WHBO Infrastructure, traded to ASX-listed SRG Global for $15.2 million three weeks ago.
Roberts Co enters the Victorian market
The Melbourne projects Roberts Co will seize control of include CSL’s headquarters and a neighbouring office at PDG’s Elizabeth North (artist’s impressions, top), which are nearing completion, as well as SP Setia’s Uno Melbourne apartment complex, at 111 A’Beckett Street (story continues below).
Construction of two more commercial projects – ISPT’s 500 Bourke St and Woodlink’s Lanson Place hotel, opposite Parliament Gardens, in East Melbourne – are set to begin.
The sale agreement doesn’t include Golden Age’s strata office at 130 Little Collins St, building of which started last year – but it could, with the parties still in negotiations.
Poly Australia’s 1000 La Trobe St and the first stage of Caydon’s Malt District, in Cremorne, are also excluded.
Two more former Melbourne Probuild projects – the $2 billion West Side Place replacing the ex-The Age site on the north east corner of Lonsdale and Spencer streets in the CBD, and part of the Caulfield Village, in the south east suburbs, have been taken back by respective land owners – Far East Consortium and Beck Property Group.
Roberts Co was established by Multiplex executive Andrew Roberts five years ago.
The businessman also backs RF Corval, a fund manager which has in recent months acquired several Melbourne assets including Southbank’s Eureka Skydeck.
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