Invesco Real Estate has sold a suburban shopping centre in Sydney for A$100m (€65m) to a local developer.

Sources told IPE Real Assets that the sale of the Forestway Shopping Centre was done at a “substantial premium” to book value. Invesco bought the centre in 2015 from an unlisted fund managed by GPT Group.

The sources said Invesco viewed this as an ideal time to exit the investment, which was acquired for the Invesco Real Estate Asia Fund at a time when it was much smaller than the US$4bn (€3.31bn) fund it is today.

The transaction was “a great deal” for the US investor, one source said, because it allowed Invesco to get out of smaller assets and to focus on investments of scale, such as Invesco’s A$400m acquisition from Brookfield of a 50% stake in Chevron House, Perth, which is currently under construction.

It is understood that Invesco intends to recycle capital from the sale of the retail centre into other activities within the Asia Fund.

To read the digital edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.