Australia’s Future Fund and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) have put up for sale AUD600m (€403m) worth of shopping centres in Queensland and Western Australia.
The assets – a half stake in the Rockingham Shopping Centre, south of Perth, and the Grand Plaza Shopping Centre in Browns Plain, Queensland – are managed by Australian retail group Vicinity Centres.
Future Fund and CPPIB are co-investors with two unnamed parties in the unlisted Vicinity Retail Partnership.
IPE Real Estate today confirmed that Vicinity has appointed JLL to handle the sale. JLL declined to comment.
Industry sources said the assets are coming to market because the private vehicle has come to the end of its life.
The partnership’s original portfolio held four assets, including the Myer Centre in Adelaide, which was sold in 2015 to Singapore-listed Starhill Global REIT for AUD288m.
There is now speculation that the fourth, remaining asset, Midland Gate, on the outskirts of Perth, might also be brought to the market.
If this happens, the partnership’s final sale proceeds could be close to AUD1bn.
In 2010, CPPIB and the Future Fund injected AUD750m into what was then known as the Colonial First State Global Asset Management (CSFGAM) Retail Partnership.
They joined two existing institutional investors to form a club.
The partnership emerged from the restructuring and recapitalisation of CSFGAM, Australia’s largest real estate fund manager, as it repositioned its AUD1.1bn Direct Property Investment Fund Retail Sector.
Through a series of corporate takeovers and mergers, management of the retail partnership has come under the control of the listed company Vicinity, manager of some AUD24.5bn in retail real estate assets in Australia.
