Today Centuria Capital Group announced it has successfully raised $162million in equity for three unlisted real estate funds since 1 January 2021, which helped underpin the Group’s latest earnings upgrade of 10.0 cents per security (cps).
Centuria’s New Zealand subsidiary, Augusta Capital, raised c.NZ $109million for the single asset Augusta Penrose Limited fund, which has settled the NZ $178 million Visy Glass manufacturing industrial facility acquisition.
Locally, Centuria simultaneously closed the oversubscribed $40million equity raise for the new fixed-term unlisted Centuria Industrial Income Fund No.1 (CIIF1), which comprises three industrial assets across Brisbane and Adelaide.
The external real estate fund manager is also on a hat-trick with the open-ended unlisted Centuria Healthcare Property Fund (CHPF), which will open for applications in mid-March for the third time and has already secured over $20million in the advance bookbuild.
In total the equity raises underpin $286.8million worth of industrial and healthcare real estate.
Jason Huljich, Centuria Joint CEO, said, “It’s exciting to confirm the significant funds we have raised in the eight short weeks of the 2021 calendar year across Australia and New Zealand. These unlisted single asset and multi-asset funds comprise hotly contested assets across the industrial and healthcare sectors.
“Most especially, the Augusta Penrose Limited fund is the largest unlisted fundraise the Group has undertaken in its 22-year history. It is a testament to the strength of our New Zealand business having only recently acquired Augusta in 2020. The Visy transaction helped underpin the Group’s latest earnings upgrade and is an excellent example of how executing our corporate acquisitions strategy provides improved earnings accretion for securityholders.”
The Visy Glass acquisition was secured on a sale-and-leaseback 20-year triple net lease, offering certainty of income. The Fund is forecast to provide investors an initial forecast pre-tax cash distribution of 5.00% per annum[i].
Huljich continued, “Though our focus has been on industrial and healthcare assets of late, we are still confident and optimistic about the decentralised office markets. With the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine now underway, we anticipate white collar workers across Australia will continue to return to the office. Across our portfolio, we are already seeing tenants more actively seeking a return to the office and we expect this trend to be accelerated in coming months.”
Centuria’s Trans-Tasman platform includes 216 assets under management (AUM) worth over $10billion. Its real estate portfolio is almost evenly split between unlisted funds, totalling $4.5billion, and listed funds totalling $4.8billion. The Group’s investment bonds division also has $0.9billion in funds under management.
Centuria desire to grow FUM by 50% in the near term, off the back of its newly expanded Healthcare division, NZ division and as a result of a push to secure more wholesale investors to the group, as per the announcements above.
We expect Centuria to expand on these unlisted funds in the year ahead.
If successful, Centuria should be able to improve distributions above $0.12cpu.
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