Abacus acquires balance of The Oasis Centre along with 4 storage facilities

Abacus Property Group announces it has exchanged contracts the purchase of the remaining 60% interest in The Oasis Centre, Broadbeach QLD from an affiliate of KKR and separately completed the acquisition of four additional Self Storage facilities.

Total consideration for the remaining 60% of The Oasis Centre was $103.5 million (excluding transaction costs) and reflects a net income yield of 7.3%. The acquisition price is reflective of the current book value.

The Oasis Centre was originally acquired by Abacus (40% interest) and KKR (60% interest) in March 2015 for $103.5 million, with Abacus engaged to provide property management, leasing and development services at the asset.

Originally built in 1989, the three level mixed-use development with 16,909m2 of convenience and food and beverage-based retail, 7,490m2 of commercial space, and 998 car spaces. Around $20 million of capital was spent in 2018 to provide the Centre a more contemporary food & dinning offer.

The Centre was offered to the market in 2019 through McVay & JLL however failed to gain sufficient interest from the market.

Since that time the asset has undergone further repositioning that sees it now established with a diversified income stream, an occupancy of 96% and a weighted average lease expiry of 5.2 years.

Terms were agreed with KKR to acquire their interest in the asset and reflect the progress that has been made at the asset over the last six years. Full control of the asset will allow Abacus to pursue future opportunities and to continue to reposition the asset towards office, health and beauty services and other uses, with The Oasis Centre becoming acknowledged as the commercial hub of Broadbeach.

Abacus also continues to execute on its planned repatriation of equity from legacy investments in non-core sectors, and so far in FY21 has exchanged contracts to sell six small scale Industrial and Office assets for a total of $63.1 million with settlements expected to occur between April 2021 and April 2022.

Abacus Managing Director, Steven Sewell commented “Since our strategic refocus announced in 2018, we have successfully and efficiently transacted to pivot the Group’s balance sheet towards strong income producing assets, and are confident through execution of strategic asset plans, each of the assets will deliver long term sustainable returns for our stakeholders.”

Abacus continues to execute on its strategy to expand its portfolio of Self Storage locations, with four established Self Storage facilities acquired for $44.2 million (excluding transaction costs) with settlement anticipated in May 2021. Three of the four were sourced via the Storage King relationship with one facility sourced off market, bringing the portfolio to a total of 962 locations, valued at approximately $1.3 billion.

The newly acquired facilities are located in the Significant Urban Areas of Adelaide (Windsor Gardens and Woodville North) and Sydney (Kirrawee and Revesby) and have an aggregate occupancy of 91.5%.