ESR has sold its remaining 19.9% stake in Cromwell Property to Brookfield Asset Management for about A$200m (€112m).
Brookfield paid a 4.1% premium over the listed property trust’s last closing price. Cromwell Property holds assets valued at around.
It is understood that Brookfield has no plan to increase its stake. The Canadian investor declined to comment for the story.
The divestment came after ESR was privatised and delisted from the Hong Kong Securities Exchange by its new owners, a consortium led by Starwood Capital. The group is in the process of streamlining its business to focus on data centre and logistics and has indicated that it plans to dispose its non-core businesses.
In May, ESR launched a A$93m block trade to sell 10.8% of its 31% stake in Cromwell, which it inherited when it took over Singapore group ARA. At the time, Phil Pearce, chief executive of ESR Australia, now president of ESR, said it was part of its stated strategy of non-core divestments to simplify its business.
Before the ARA raid, Cromwell Property was one of the fastest-growing property groups expanding outside Australia and mainly to Europe.
Its European platform was sold to Stoneweg for €280m in May last year, and the Geneva-based manager also bought the entire 27.79% stake in the Singapore-listed Cromwell European Real Estate Investment Trust, since renamed Stoneweg European Reit.
To read the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.
