Charter Hall’s office fund has taken over an office development site in Australia from a Singapore developer for AUD140m (€87m).
Charter Hall Prime Office Fund (CPOF) has acquired 555 Collins Street in Melbourne’s central business district from Fragrance Group. The AUD4.5bn CPOF already owns an adjoining site at 55 King Street.
Fragrance, which had purchased the site for AUD78m in 2014, had originally planned to build an 82-storey residential tower there.
Fragrance reworked its plans twice after the initial project floundered due to complications arising from its designs, and changes in government planning policy. It finally decided to sell the site.
Charter Hall Office chief executive, Adrian Taylor, said: “We see this investment as an exciting opportunity to create and hold another landmark office tower, providing our capital partners with access to institutional grade property investments.”
Brown said recent high prices for office sites in Melbourne CBD underscored the favourable outlook of its CBD office market.
“CPOF is putting to work equity raised that will help to further grow its existing portfolio of high-quality assets,” said CPOF’s fund manager Matthew Brown.
The fund has recently raised AUD413.3m from a US private placement and a further AUD460m from an equity raising.
