The long held Kirby Industrial Park in Rockdale, Sydney has been sold to Urban Logistics Co, a joint venture between private equity firm NashCap and funds managed by BlackRock Real Assets for $120m.
The 4.1ha property at 443 West Botany St was home to James N. Kirby, a family based manufacturing business with a 75 year history in Australia. The business was sold to a Texas based group, Lennox International for c$100m back in 1999 with the Kirby Family retaining control of the real estate assets. At the time of the sale, Kirby Refrigeration and Kirby Engineering had a workforce of 900 people and revenues of nearly $200 million.
Fast forward 22 years and the family group have now decided to sell one of the properties in West Botany Street.
Kirby Industrial Park is currently a highly functional industrial park which features a number of modern high clearance warehouses with office spaces along with some affordable older style warehouses with medium to low clearance. Several Vacant spaces are currently available for lease via Colliers at rates of $85 – $180/sqm.
The second of the assets, at the adjoining site at 429 West Botany Street is earmarked by Transport NSW for the M6 Motorway Operations Centre and was recently acquired by RMS. The M6 is planned to pass in tunnels beneath both properties with an interchange on President Avenue in close proximity to the Kirby Industrial Park. The M6 Motorway will connect Rockdale and surrounding precincts to the M8 Motorway and Sydney’s orbital network.
Trent Gallagher, Michael Crombie and Sean Thomson of Colliers acted for the Vendor but declined to comment on the deal.
The transaction compares to a 4.5ha site at Padstow, 10 Kilometres west, where Stockland recently paid $96.5m, reflecting a 4.3% yield ($2,129/sqm of site area).
NashCap have partnered with Blackrock to acquire and manage a portfolio of last mile logistics assets in Sydney and Melbourne with a portfolio end value of over $1 billion.
The portfolio strategy is to reposition and redevelop older style warehouses in infill urban locations into modern logistics facilities to service the growing demand of e-commerce and logistics businesses.
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