Aventus Retail Property Fund (ASX:AVN) announced today that it has settled the sale of Shepparton Home, located in Victoria, and entered into an unconditional agreement for the sale of Tweed Hub, located in New South Wales. The sale agreements are with separate purchasers, with settlement on Tweed Hub to be completed by the end of the first quarter in 2018. The aggregate price for Shepparton Home and Tweed Hub is $60.1 million, reflecting a 6.5% premium to the book value as at 30 June 2017 and a weighted yield of 7.42%. A vacancy guarantee retention valued at $0.9m has been provided to the purchaser of Shepparton Home. Darren Holland, Chief Executive Officer of Aventus Property Group, said “the sale of these two centres is in line with our strategy to divest smaller regional centres as opportunities arise in order to maintain balance sheet strength and lower AVN’s gearing. Following the acquisitions of Castle Hill and Marsden Park in May 2017 for $436m, we advised that we would implement capital management initiatives to ensure we had flexibility to continue to enhance the value and quality of AVN’s portfolio.” Following the settlement of these higher yielding centres, Aventus anticipate that the Fund’s FY18 FFO per unit will be at the lower end of previous guidance of 2%-4% growth over FY17 FFO growth. #Aventus
