Asian Logistics Group Buys Australian Developer for $100m
Charter Hall has sold out of its investment in industrial property developer Foundation of Investors of Commercial and Industrial Property (CIP) after fully integrating its development capability in house.
Pan-Asian logistics real estate platform ESR acquired the half stake, signalling a further push into the Australian market after taking a 14.9 per cent stake in Centuria and an 18.06 per cent stake in Propertylink over a two-week period last year.
The 50 per cent stake realises an enterprise value of $102.5 million for Charter Hall, delivering a $9.5 million premium to its book value.
Ex-Goodman Group executive director Philip Pearce has been appointed chief executive of ESR Australia.
“The launch of ESR Australia underlines ESR’s commitment to a long-term presence in Australia,” Pearce said.
“[The] acquisition of CIP creates a strong foundation for our local business. CIP has a highly-experienced management team with a track record of delivering results, all of whom will remain in the business.”
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Charter Hall managing director David Harrison said the partnership has delivered an annual 10 per cent average cash franked dividend to shareholders.
“The partnership has also contributed over $1 billion of pre-leased investments contributing to our now $6 billion of industrial and logistics investment assets, together with a further $1.5 billion development pipeline.
“The partnership has delivered high quality pre-leased industrial investments to major tenant customers such as Australia Post, VW, Ceva, AHG, Coles, Target, Reject Shop, Couriers Please and many others, with a total of 30 pre-leased industrial investments secured.”
Charter Hall has 24 industrial projects under construction with its in-house development arm.
On Wednesday, the fund manager announced that two of its industrial funds had snapped up a purpose-built Coles distribution centre in Sydney’s south west.
The CIP transaction has been approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board and is expected to settle this month.
Main image: ESR logistics centre in Guangdong Province, China.
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