Shakespeare strikes in $66m Brisbane office play

500 Queen St in the Brisbane CBD. Picture: Annette Dew

Shakespeare Property Group has emerged as the buyer of a $66m office block in Brisbane’s CBD as it looks to tie up its purchases in Sydney and Melbourne.

The group swooped on the 15-storey building at 500 Queen St in a deal brokered by CBRE’s Jack Morrison, Peter Chapple and Bruce Baker adding to a spree in which it is buying three more offices for about $500m.

The office block was sold by the private GWC Properties No 2 Pty Ltd which picked it up for $26.7m in 2012.

Managing agent Trident Property Advisory posted that at that time the building had a 44.17 per cent vacancy rate. But it had reworked the leases so it had an average vacancy rate of less than 4.94 per cent. It advised on a rebuild of the mechanical services and other moves to boost the building’s quality.

The agent has declined to comment on the campaign that won interest from a number of private investors, syndicates and domestic funds.

The B-grade building spans 7017sq m and has two basement levels of undercover parking for 53 cars, ground floor, three podium levels and eleven upper floors.

The low-profile Shakespeare sports a successful track record in offices and hospitality investing, and has been buying when many institutions are unable to move due to their low share prices.

Its deal-making elsewhere indicates the depth of capital for well-positioned assets, despite interest rate rises unravelling some deals.

Shakespeare is separately buying into Sydney’s dress circle of properties around Circular Quay, and is in talks to buy Domain House from the Balnaves family for about $140m. It earlier bought Reservoir on Crown in Sydney’s Surry Hills from LaSalle Investment Management for about $116.4m.

Shakespeare is also targeting the purchase of an office block in Nicholson St in Melbourne CBD from Dexus for about $250m. The A-grade 18-storey office tower at 8 Nicholson St sits on the eastern edge of the CBD.

The listed company has a wide range of assets on the block but is only trading for prices around book value – a sign of its confidence in values.