Former Poly Australia director Yuan Tao adds Ikea warehouse to new venture
Former Poly Australia director Yuan Tao has teamed up with fellow Chinese investors to acquire more than $54 million of industrial assets in the inner Melbourne suburb of Abbotsford in just a few months.Through a new investment vehicle called Southlink Grosvenor, Mr Tao snapped up a 3600-square-metre Abbotsford warehouse leased to IKEA at 30-36 Grosvenor Street for $17.3 million.
The Australian Financial Review can also reveal that Southlink Grosvenor was the $37.3 million buyer of the former Weston’s biscuit factory at 45 Grosvenor Street, leased to Australia Post and Honeywell, which veteran Melbourne developers Michael Lasky and the Herzog family sold last October.
Mr Tao is the sole director of Southlink Grosvenor and one of four Chinese investors who each has a 25 per cent stake.
He said the longer-term plan was to develop both sites into apartment projects. “We’ve not decided which direction we will go but we have a basic concept,” Mr Tao said.
Before going his own way, Mr Tao held a number of senior positions at Poly Australia including as its Australian marketing director. He was also managing director of Poly Southlink, a joint venture between Poly and Southlink that developed the $80 million Claremont Manor apartments in South Yarra.
Poly Australia is a subsidiary of Poly Real Estate, which is owned by the Chinese government’s China Poly Group Corporation. Poly has established itself on the east coast with a number of residential and commercial projects in Sydney and Melbourne.
The sale of both Grosvenor Street assets to Southlink Grosvenor was handled by CBRE, led by Mark Wizel and Lewis Tong.
The IKEA warehouse returns $845,000 a year in net rent, reflecting a yield of 4.88 per cent.
Mr Wizel said the purchase was ostensibly a longer-term landbank play, given the secure lease to IKEA and the building’s close proximity to the firm’s retail store at the Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre.
“The property would obviously need to be rezoned for future development, but the sale continues the evolving trend of Chinese capital away from immediate development plays into more of a sit-and-watch play as opposed to set and forget,” Mr Wizel said.
