Shopping Centre

Shopping centre legend Sir Frank Lowy has called time on the Australian mall empire he co-founded six decades ago after selling an $815 million stake in the listed Scentre Group on Wednesday night.

Wealthy investors are putting up their capital to bet against the prevailing gloomy sentiment about retail property even as some local institutions adopt a cautious stance towards the under-pressure sector.

Property heavyweight Mirvac has benefited from the strong appetite for well-located Sydney shopping centres with its St Marys Village trading for about $68 million to an Asian-backed investor.

Adelaide’s retail investment market is hotting up after a shopping complex in the city’s north went under the hammer for more than $21 million.

Funds manager M/Group is circling the Coolalinga Central shopping centre that Darwin-based developer Gwelo Developments put on the block in June for about $95 million.

The Charter Hall Retail REIT has snapped up a 20% stake in a $281 million portfolio made up of two Sydney centres anchored by Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and Kmart.

The weekly ritual of shopping for family essentials might be all it takes to persuade a cashed-up investor to swoop on a sprawling retail package now up for grabs in Melbourne’s east. 

Major landlords including the owner of the local Westfield empire, Scentre, as well as Vicinity Centres, GPT and Stockland could be exposed as David Jones looks to shrink its store network in Australia.

Shopping centres are anything but dead if a $250 million purchase “Mean Machine” swimmer Mark Stockwell has just completed in the Queensland city of Noosa is anything to go by.