Link in play for three Sydney shopping centres
Link REIT – Asia’s biggest real estate trust – is in due diligence for a half stake of three Sydney CBD shopping centres.
Speculated to be worth over $530 million and reflect a five per cent yield – the deal is with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, which quietly offered them six months ago.
The bulk of the value is attributed to the Queen Victoria Building, understood to be worth in excess $270m.
The Galeries – recently appraised at close to $150m – and The Strand Arcade (pictured, top) are the other properties.
If the deal proceeds, Link would hold the assets with Vicinity Centres, which acquired its half interest and management rights from GIC for c$556m in 2017 – the last property peak.
In that transaction, Vicinity traded a 49 per cent stake in Chatswood Chase, valued at the time at c$562.5m.
Link grows in Australia
Link made its first investment outside of Greater China two years ago with the $683m purchase of a Sydney office, 100 Market Street, from US-based Blackstone.
In March, the Hong Kong group formed a relationship with EG to grow its Australian portfolio (story continues below).
Two months ago, Link outlaid A$708m (£380m) for a 17-storey, c37,300 sqm commercial building, The Cabot, in London’s Canary Wharf.
Colliers’ Lachlan MacGillivray and CBRE’s Simon Rooney are marketing the Sydney shopping centres; both agents declined to comment.
Any sale would come three months since GIC and Nuveen offloaded a two thirds stake in Melbourne’s Myer store for a total of $270.4m.
That deal, with Charter Hall and Abacus Property Group, reflected a yield closer to six per cent.
Coincidentally, Vicinity also owns the balance of that investment.
More to come.
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