Singapore's Mapletree snaps up $95m industrial site
The proposed Crestmead Logistics Estate, near Brisbane. Photo: Supplied

Singapore's Mapletree snaps up $95m industrial site

Listed Singaporean property REIT Mapletree Logistics Trust has bought 36 hectares of industrial land on Brisbane’s outskirts in a deal worth about $95 million as institutional investors look beyond Sydney for better value.

It is understood the trust has agreed to terms with the vendor Pointcorp for the sale of the site, which will be part of the proposed 157 hectare Crestmead Logistics Estate, south of the Logan Motorway corridor in Brisbane.

Pointcorp, a Brisbane developer which has been amalgamating the land over the past two years, will start developing the estate in January. Mapletree will then be able to develop its own warehouses on the site with a capacity for about 200,000 square metres of space.

The land is just south of the 90,000-square-metre Metcash property that Charter Hall purchased from Blackstone earlier in the year for $183.6 million and is transacting on a yield of 5.15 per cent. The relatively tight yield is indicative of the increased demand from institutional investors for industrial property .

Pointcorp director Chris Vitale confirmed the group had contracted to sell 36 hectares unconditionally but would not disclose the price or buyer.

Selling agents Michael Callow and Scott Dalton of Cushman & Wakefield and Colliers International’s Matthew Frazer-Ryan also declined to comment on the deal.

However, Mr Callow did say there was a trend of institutional funds restocking their land supplies in Melbourne and Brisbane to facilitate large-scale warehouse and logistics parks, given the Sydney market was tight and overpriced.

“Melbourne land prices have doubled in the last 12 months based on strong tenant demand,” Mr Callow said. “It’s having the best run of all capital cities and Brisbane is likely to follow in 2020.”

Based on some recent comparable transactions, industrial land has been selling for anywhere between $600 and $700 per square metre on Sydney’s fringes, compared to between $250 and $350 per square metre in Brisbane’s western corridor precinct.

The Charter Hall-managed Core Logistics Partnership recently announced its acquisition of a 3.9 hectare site at Glendenning in Sydney’s west for $26 million, at about $680 per square metre.

Mapletree Logistics Trust has been an active player in the local logistics property market of late.

In September, the REIT bought a yet-to-be-built untenanted 15,000 square metres warehouse in Melbourne’s west in a fund-through deal worth $18 million and last year the trust paid $102 million for a Coles distribution centre in Heathwood in Brisbane’s south-west from US-based institutional investor Blackstone.

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