Australian super fund Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (CSC) has hired GPT Group to manage its A$2.8bn (€1.7bn) property portfolio.
AXA Investment Management, which took over the CSC mandate when the French manager bought Sydney-based boutique manager, Eureka, in 2016, have managed the super fund’s assets until now.
The assets are 101 Collins Street, Melbourne, and 50% each in QVI, an office tower in Perth and Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, a regional centre in Brisbane. The remaining half interests in QVI and Indooroopilly Shopping Centre were Investa Commercial Property Fund and two Dexus funds respectively.
GPT’s outgoing chief executive Bob Johnston, which announced the mandate during the company’s annual results, said: “We are pleased to come out as the preferred manager, and we worked with them through last year as they did their due diligence on our governance and selected GPT. They are now in the process of transitioning the portfolio (to our platform)”
Asked if GPT was working on other prospects to grow funds under management, Johnston said: “CSC was a great win for us. We are focussed on making sure that we embed that in the business and transition it well and effect some performance.”
He said there were opportunities to grow some of its existing mandates. “UniSuper recently bought a large industrial site in Melbourne, and we are looking forward to working with them on that and expanding the portfolio,” said Johnston. The industrial project has an end value of A$1bn.
The CSC mandate is the third significant mandate for GPT which, in 2022 took over the management of UniSuper’s portfolio of four retail and two office assets, then valued at A$2.8bn from AMP Capital. Last October Quadreal moved the management of its student housing assets, valued at around A$1bn, from another manager, Cedar Pacific, to GPT, with which Quadreal has an existing logistics joint venture.
The new mandate will lift GPT, Australia’s first listed REIT, from A$32.6bn on 31 December 2023 to more than A$35bn.
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