The Centuria Industrial REIT has acquired three assets from Australia’s biggest telecoms company, Telstra, for A$447m (€272m).
The largest of these was the Telstra Data Centre, located in Clayton, an industrial Melbourne suburb. This was acquired for A$416.7m.
The 3.2 hectare Telstra Data Centre complex is made up of 10 buildings, including Telstra’s newest 6.1MW data centre, the adjacent 6.6MW data centre and associated energy centre.
The Centuria trust today launched a fully-underwritten capital raising, bringing in A$341m to part-finance the Telstra purchase and three other smaller industrial buildings, now under due diligence.
Jason Hulich, Centuria’s joint CEO, told IPE Real Assets the Telstra Data Centre was the single largest transaction undertaken by the industrial trust.
“There was very strong competition for the asset, with a very long shortlist,” he said. “We are very happy to be chosen.”
Hulich said the latest acquisition had “bulked up” the trust, pushing its total assets under management to A$2.1bn.
For the data centre, Telstra had signed a new 30-year triple-net lease, with annual rent review and options for two further 10-year leases.
“In this current environment, it is very exciting to have access to income from a top ASX company for such a long time,” he said.
Telstra CEO, Andrew Penn, said the sale was another marker of progress in the company’s T22 strategy. “As part of T22, we have an ambition to monetise up to $2bn worth of assets to strengthen our balance sheet. This deal means we have now reached over $1.5bn,” he said.
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