BGC Centre leads string of key Perth office deals
Singapore-based Redhill Property Partners is sealing its purchase of Perth’s BGC Centre from the family of late tycoon Len Buckeridge for more than $100 million.
The company, backed by US private equity group Apollo, is one of the players chasing the upside in the resources capital.
Perth has drawn a flock of local and offshore players capitalising on the city’s rental recovery. The Australian flagged Redhill’s interest in June.
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Sydney fund manager EG is targeting an office block at 2 Mill St in Perth’s CBD that could trade for about $80 million.
Centuria’s listed office fund also bought William Square in Northbridge, just north of Perth’s CBD, for $189.5 million last month.
Meanwhile Stockland is seeking to offload the city’s Durack Centre and two associated buildings for about $115 million as it exits its Perth commercial holdings.
Redhill Partners sports a strong track record in Perth and this year picked up 18 Brodie-Hall Drive, a campus-style office site in the suburb of Bentley, for $18.25 million.
It also bought 45 St Georges Terrace, a B-grade office building in the CBD, for about $57 million and is now repositioning the building.
The Buckeridge family offloaded the latest city skyscraper, at 28 The Esplanade, via JLL. It has 17 floors of office space with views over Elizabeth Quay and the Swan River. There is ground floor retail space and three levels of parking with 179 bays.
The tower comprises more than 15,000sqm of A-grade office space and sits opposite the waterside precinct, Elizabeth Quay. JLL’s John Williams, Nigel Freshwater and Tom Nattrass brokered the sale.
The building is 87%-occupied, well above Perth’s CBD average, and has a weighted average lease expiry of 2.3 years, giving the buyer the chance to lift income as leasing demand lifts.
Perth’s CBD property market recorded more than 51,000sq m of positive net absorption in the past 12 months.
Perth’s office market is offering value for counter-cyclical investors with the prime equivalent yield spread to Sydney at about 200 basis points.
The $2.6 billion Elizabeth Quay project has drawn major corporate and government tenants including oil and gas giant Chevron, which is shifting to a new headquarters tower being developed by Brookfield.
That skyscraper will soar 30 stories, with a half interest close to being bought by US funds group Invesco for about $400 million.
The sale speeds the carve-up of the late Buckeridge’s property empire. Singapore’s Hiap Hoe last year bought his company’s Aloft Perth hotel, and an office complex, for $100 million, and Malaysia’s YTL acquired Buckeridge’s Westin Perth for about $200 million.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
