The battle for control of some of AMP Capital’s prime Shopping Centre assets continue with CBUS and UniSuper now electing their own manager.
The pair of investors joined together in late 2021 in a series of transaction to end up with 100% interest in Pacific Fair and 50% interest in Macquarie Centre, exiting ADIA and CPBIB as investors in the AMP Capital Retail Trust (ACRT) worth $2.7bn.
As part of the AMP Capital sale to Dexus, the management of the ACRT was intended to transfer to Dexus, however the transfer was always subject to the agreement of its investors. Today, AMP Capital advised that a majority of those investors elected to appoint an external manager.
The manager of ACRT is likely to be GPT who separately announced yesterday that it had been appointed to UniSuper’s $2.8bn direct portfolio, which had also been managed by AMP Capital and includes several co-ownership arrangements with AMP Capital other Shopping Centre Fund (ASCF).
The retail assets in the UniSuper direct portfolio include Karrinyup Shopping Centre in Western Australia, Marrickville Metro and Dapto Mall in New South Wales, and Malvern Central in Victoria. UniSuper’s office assets will also transition including 7 Macquarie Place and a 25 per cent interest in Brookfield Place in New South Wales.
Dexus are still slated to take management of the ASCF which owns interests in Macquarie Centre, Indooroopilly, Bayfair Centre, Ocean Keys, and Royal Randwick, however as UniSuper is also a large investor in ASCF, the transfer of the Fund is still not set in stone.
AMP Capital (renamed Collarmate) were in the running for an extra $25m of consideration if the ACRT Trust transitioned across to Dexus, however as investors continue to move against AMP the price continues to drop.
AMP Capital says the decision to change manager does not impact the completion of the sale of the remaining real estate and domestic infrastructure equity business to Dexus, which is now expected to complete by November 2022. Dexus will now pay $250m for the platform of real estate and infrastructure assets, but there remains risk in the deal for Dexus if investors continue to make decisions to appoint alternative managers.
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