ISPT office selldown advances with Parramatta tower offloaded to Mintus for $83m

ISPT has sold 10 Smith Street, Parramatta to private company Mintus for close to $83m.

Superannuation fund-backed manager ISPT is advancing its selldown of key Sydney office holdings, with private company Mintus snapping up a Parramatta tower from the group for close to $83m.

The block at 10 Smith Street was put on the market earlier this year as ISPT looked to trim its holdings and Mintus is looking to capitalise on its experience in the western Sydney hub.

The private group in 2022 bought another Parramatta complex at 140-150 George Street from the Dexus Office Partnership for $154m, which it has since overhauled. Mintus also bought 130 George Street in Parramatta from Dexus for $69.1m in 2024.

The Parramatta block at 10 Smith Street being sold by ISPT is an 11-storey A-Grade building. Built in 1970, it spans 13,369sq m of net leaseable area and has been extensively refurbished, most recently in 2022.

The building is secured by tenants including the NSW government, HSBC and the Bank of Queensland, and was 72 per cent leased, in line with the still recovering market. The passing yield is in the 8.5 per cent range, but once leased up the building will show yield in the 7 per cent range.

The deal was brokered by agents John McCann and James Mitchell after a competitive on-market process.

They said when the tower next to Parramatta Square went on the market that it was well-positioned to attract tenants, as shown in recent leasing deals, with Bank of Queensland signing a new seven-year lease. It has a site area of 3,886sq m, and favourable height limits that could allow Mintus to construct a high-rise tower.

ISPT has also completed its sale of a long-held North Sydney tower. Forza Capital bought the block at 100 Pacific Highway for $226.5m, after raising $139m of equity from its client base of family offices and wealthy investors.

The 19-storey office tower comprises 21,896sq m of space and a 122-bay car park. The property was built in 2006 by Leighton Properties, now CIMIC Group, and was acquired by the current vendor ISPT.

The selling agents on the transaction were CBRE’s Mitch Noonan, James Parry and Flint Davidson and Cushman & Wakefield’s Josh Cullen, Steven Kearney and Kenny Duncanson.

Forza Capital director Ashley Wain said the purchase metrics were outstanding with a fully leased yield of 8.8 per cent and a rate of $10,344 per sq m.

“The property has been purchased at half its replacement cost,” he said. “We have been patiently assessing the market for opportunities and looking in markets like North Sydney that others have ignored. These sort of investment opportunities, buying a high-quality institutional grade assets in dysfunctional markets do not present often, and hence we felt the attributes were compelling.”