$650m stake in Adelaide’s biggest mall up for grabs in retail revival
A half stake in Westfield Marion, Adelaide’s largest shopping centre and held by a Singaporean investor, has hit the market with a price tag of $650 million amid a burst of trading in high-profile and highly priced interests in Australia’s malls.
Offering the stake is private investment group Cuscaden Peak, formerly known as Singapore Press Holdings, which bought its half interest from a Lendlease fund in 2019 for $670 million.
That price expectations are returning to near their level of seven years ago is indicative of the roller-coaster ride the retail sector has been through after the COVD-19 pandemic forced shopping malls to close and their owners to refinance their portfolios.
But such is the confidence in the recovery of major malls as commercial real estate plays, that the number of headline deals being struck is mounting. Two days before Christmas, ASX-listed Scentre sold a half interest in the jewel in its crown, Westfield Sydney, to the Australian Retirement Trust for $864 million.
And last week, a Melbourne-based fund manager, Fawkner Property, finalised its landmark $895 million acquisition of Erina Fair on the NSW Central Coast, in the largest ever 100 per cent trade of an Australian shopping centre.
“Both domestic and offshore capital are actively reallocating back into the retail sector, driven by renewed conviction in the outlook, compelling risk-adjusted returns, and an increasingly competitive market environment,” said CBRE’s Simon Rooney, who is brokering the Westfield Marion sale with JLL’s Nick Willis and Sam Hatcher.
The Adelaide offering extends the run of big ticket mall stakes put on the market, with total retail deals rising 41 per cent to $13.5 billion last year, the sector’s strongest year since 2021, according to MSCI.
Due to its capacity, the Adelaide centre is classified as a super-regional mall, of which there are only 20 in the country with just 12 owners, according to JLL’s Willis.
“As global retail real estate experiences a significant resurgence, investors face constrained access to institutional-grade assets,” he said. “The sale of Westfield Marion presents a rare opportunity to enter this sub-sector in one of Australia’s premier performing shopping centres.”
