Weekly Update 29/3/2021

29 March 2021

Welcome to this week’s Property News.

It was a relatively quiet week this week with just a few large transactions and announcements to guide the market.

Among the sales was the disposal by CBUS’ of their 1/3 stake in 1 Bligh Street, which was sold to Singapore’s Mercatus Group. The Group is one of the largest mall owners in Singapore and the acquisition of 1 Bligh Street marks their first acquisition outside of Singapore. Dexus will effectively manage their interest and continue to hold the balance of the asset.

This week, Dexus also released details of their simplified corporate structure which effectively inserts a new Trust structure above the current stapled trusts. The restructure is really about removing structural impediments to growth as Dexus seek to grow both organically and via M&A activities, particularly in removing remove CGT issues which have made it difficult to pursue any M&A activity. At a cost of $35m, we expect Dexus will participate in more M&A Activity once the structure is put in place. Who do they have in mind – I wonder ?

Next week marks the start of the second Quarter of 2021 and with it will come a much higher level of activity across the market.