Charter Hall Group has partnered with one of its funds to buy a 49% stake in an Australian property portfolio of telecommunication exchanges for A$700m (€428m) from Telstra Corporation.
Charter Hall, its Charter Hall Long WALE REIT, and one the industry super fund will become co-owners of 37 telecommunications exchange properties located around Australia, but predominantly in metropolitan areas in Sydney and Melbourne.
Telstra will retain ownership of 51% of the assets under an unlisted property trust known as Telco Exchange Properties and has agreed to lease the assets for 21 years.
Separately, Charter Hall has created a partnership which will own the 49% stake in the Telco Exchange Properties Trust.
David Harrison, Charter Hall’s group chief executive, told IPE Real Assets that listed Charter Hall Long WALE REIT would have a 50% stake in the partnership, with the balance divided between the capital partner (28.2%) and the group’s balance sheet (21.8%).
Charter Hall today also acquired an office building in Brisbane for A$413.6m. The deal brings Charter Hall’s acquisition tally to more than A$3bn in four weeks.
Telstra sells further assets to strengthen balance sheet
North American private equity firm I Squared Capital has bought three data centres in Europe and Asia from Telstra for A$160m (€98m).
Andrew Penn, Telstra’s CEO, said: “When we announced our T22 strategy in June 2018 it included the goal of monetising up to A$2bn of assets to strengthen our balance sheet.
“Since then we have been working to unlock the true value of some of our assets and today’s agreement when completed, will take us to around the A$1bn mark.”
Global infrastructure investor I Squared Capital would hand over the operation of the three data centres to its subsidiary HGC Communications, based in Hong Kong.
