Dexus fund sells outer Brisbane retail centre for $85m
The Dexus Wholesale Property Fund has offloaded a sub-regional shopping centre in outer suburban Brisbane for $85 million, some $15 million less than the fund was hoping for the asset when it started shopping it around three years ago.
Investor and developer Mintus purchased the 20,252 square metre Beenleigh Marketplace from the $15 billion unlisted fund, which focuses on larger commercial assets and which recently sold the Shepparton Marketplace shopping centre in regional Victoria for $88.1 million.
Other assets the fund owns or has stakes in include Sydney’s 1 Bligh St office tower, Brisbane’s Waterfront Place complex at 1 Eagle Street, and Melbourne’s 80 Collins Street.
The Beenleigh sale was one of three assets, along with the Shepparton Marketplace and the Deepwater Plaza centre in Woy Woy on the NSW Central Coast – likely to be sold before Christmas – that would bring in about $300 million in total, said CBRE agent Simon Rooney, who managed the Beenleigh sale.
“Interest rates have had a direct correlation with asset values,” he said.
“That’s no surprise, but on the positive side, this rebasing of values has been very attractive to investors. It’s become very compelling as compared to uncertainty in the office markets and that of industrial and logistics.”
The Dexus fund put the Beenleigh Marketplace – which it acquired in 2013 for $88.4 million – up for sale in 2019 with a $100 million-plus asking price, but it failed to find a buyer during the year when the benchmark cash rate halved from 1.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent.
Mr Rooney said the price fall in sub-regional retail assets was a precursor to similar declines likely in office assets.
“We’re probably 12 to 18 months ahead of the curve in terms of a recalibration of office values,” he said.
The Beenleigh Marketplace, anchored by a Woolworths and a Big W, lies 32 kilometres south-east of Brisbane. It has an adjoining office building and 4390 sq m of surplus land, creating an opportunity for redevelopment.
