AM alpha sells Treasury Wine Estates warehouse in Adelaide for $121m

The Treasury Wine Estates warehouse in Penfield. Picture: Supplied by AM alpha

German family office AM alpha has sold a major logistics hub in Adelaide’s north for $121m, pocketing a $23m profit on the sale just a year after acquiring the site.

Sydney fund manager Fife Capital picked up the 45,000sq m warehousing and distribution facility which is fully leased to Treasury Wine Estates.

The acquisition follows a string of industrial purchases by Fife, including the acquisition of a $200m portfolio, heavily weighted with industrial properties, sold off by the estate of the late Perth construction tycoon Len Buckeridge last year.

Later in the year it splashed out $56.7m on two warehouses in Geebung and Narangba, just north of Brisbane.

Institutional investor appetite for industrial assets has surged since the onset of Covid-19.

Fuelled by the rise in e-commerce activity, onshoring and a shift in global supply chains, occupier demand for space has soared, with CBRE reporting last month that national industrial vacancy had dipped to a record low of just 0.8 per cent, down from 6.3 per cent before the pandemic

And with many new development projects delayed due to weather events and material shortages, the level of supply is struggling to keep up with demand.

AM alpha paid $98m for the Treasury intermodal facility in Penfield, 30km north of Adelaide, following previous investments in office and retail assets in Sydney and Brisbane.

AM alpha managing director Martin Lemke said the shortage of industrial properties in Australia was likely to continue to attract interest from investors, and the Munich-based firm was on the lookout for “other exciting real estate projects in Australia”.

“High-quality logistics properties with solid leases directly connected to major transport infrastructure are very limited in Australia,” he said.

“They will therefore always be very much sought after. We successfully unlocked and acquired this Adelaide logistics centre in 2021 in an off-market transaction with excellent foresight, at a time when institutional capital was predominantly focused on logistics locations on Australia’s east coast.”

The Treasury distribution centre has been in operation at Penfield since 2014, starting with a 22,000sq m footprint before a $30m expansion completed in 2018.

The complex consists of two buildings and includes excess development land across a total of 10.95ha.

It is used for both domestic and export distribution.

JLL brokered the sale, while Sydney-based Realmont Property Partners provided local support on the transaction after introducing AM alpha to the property last year.

Fife Capital did not return calls.