Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing’s (MSREI) core Asia fund is buying TH Real Estate’s 50% stake in a Melbourne office tower for around AUD100m (€62m).

Sources confirmed that the parties have been negotiating and are due to close the deal today.

IPE Real Estate understands that MSREI is acquiring the asset for its Prime Property Fund Asia, an open-ended core fund.

TH Real Estate bought the half stake in the building from listed property group Mirvac when it was developing the project in 2014.

The tower, located at the Docklands end of the Melbourne central business district, is now fully leased.

This will be the third acquisition in Australia for the MSREI fund, which was launched in late 2015. It has been securing assets in key Asia Pacific gateway cities, including in Japan.

MSREI’s Prime Property Fund Asia, which manages at least US$1bn (€813m), was created to mirror MSREI’s long-running open-ended core fund in the US, the Prime Property Fund.

It made its maiden acquisition in Australia in 2016 buying One Shelley Street in Sydney in partnership with Charter Hall Group for AUD525m from Brookfield Properties Partners.

In this latest deal, Morgan Stanley has deepened its relationship with Mirvac, which sold a 50% stake in an adjoining office tower to the MSREI fund last June for close to AUD140m.

That transaction was soon followed by the launch of a jointly-owned logistics platform known as Mirvac Industrial Logistics Partnership (MILP).

The partners have, so far, acquired two industrial properties in Victoria for AUD65.5m, and are said to be on a hunt for more core and value-add industrial assets on the Eastern seaboard.

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