ASX-200 listed Centuria Capital Group has achieved above prior book value sales premiums for two urban assets in Sydney and the Gold Coast, respectively, which reflect strong demand for well located commercial real estate benefitting from urban regeneration and in close proximity to housing, schools and universities.
On Friday 21 April, contracts exchanged for The Belltower at 6 Cornwallis Street, South Eveleigh NSW for $18.25million, reflecting a 14% premium The 1,148sqm office building benefitted from a recently completed, extensive refurbishment and was sold with vacant position.
The Belltower was originally constructed in 1887 as part of the Eveleigh Locomotive Workshop’s Manager Office, with the bell signalling the beginning and end of the railyard working day. In the early 2000s, it formed part of a wider regeneration masterplan, transforming the area into a technology precinct that is now occupied by the Commonwealth Bank, Channel 7, CSIRO’s Data61, Cicada Innovations, and the University of Sydney’s Institute of Agriculture and School of Life and Environmental Sciences.
On Thursday 30 March 2023, the Papilio Early Learning and Kindergarten-operated childcare centre at 60 Investigator Drive, Robina QLD property sold at auction for $8.8million, reflecting a 4.7% premium to book value and a 21% premium to its 2020 purchase price. It is 100% occupied on a net lease term, with CPI-linked positive rent reviews. The property provides a 12.8-year WALE.
The childcare property is within the masterplanned Robina Health Precinct, benefitting from the Robina Hospital and Robina Town Centre’s retail and leisure precinct. It is also part of the southwest Gold Coast’s desirable school catchment being 80 metres from the Robina State High School and within proximity to other private and public schools.
Both assets were bought by private investors.
Ross Lees, Centuria Head of Funds Management, said, “Centuria has a long-held investment strategy to secure well-positioned commercial real estate where value-add initiatives can be implemented to capitalise on excellent community infrastructure, public transport and road arterials.
“The South Eveleigh and Robina assets are exemplary of this strategy and further benefitted on long-term regeneration programmes. These assets lend themselves to the work-live-play rhetoric, which we believe was appealing to their new owners.
“By achieving above book value premiums, we believe our value-add strategy has been successfully executed, creating value for our unlisted funds’ unitholders.”
The Belltower was part of Centuria’s unlisted, closed-ended Australian Technology Park (ATP) Fund, which still retains two office buildings within the technology precinct. The Fund originally acquired The Belltower in April 2016 for $3.3million. Since inception in April 2016, ATP has provided a 238% total return.
The Robina childcare centre was part of the Centuria Diversified Property Fund (CDPF), which is an open-ended unlisted fund comprising direct and indirect property investments, equities and cash or cash-like products. Since its inception in June 2016, CDPF has provided a 10.8% per annum total return. Further information on CDPF’s historic performance over different time periods can be found on Centuria’s website.
Knight Frank’s Jonathan Vaughan and Tim Holtsbaum and Karbon Property Josh Watts and James McCourt were the appointed sales agents for The Belltower. Burgess Rawson’s Natalie Couper was the auctioneer for the Robina childcare.
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