YFG Shopping Centres expands its Queensland portfolio with the recent off-market acquisition of Strathpine Centre for $267 million.
Built in 1983, Strathpine Centre is a major convenience-based, sub-regional shopping centre situated on a 17.47-ha site anchored by supermarket chains Woolworths, Coles and Aldi; discount department stores Big W and Target, and Birch Carroll and Coyle cinema complex. Its convenience, food and service tenant base represents 84 per cent of the Centre’s 45,304-sqm gross lettable area (GLA) and 83 per cent of the total gross passing rental income.
Blackstone Group was the prior owner of the Centre who acquired it from Scentre Group in 2015 for $285 million before unloading the property late last year. CBRE’s Head of Retail Capital Markets – Pacific, Simon Rooney, negotiated the deal on behalf of YFG Shopping Centre.
YFG Shopping Centre currently owns and operates more than 20 shopping centres across South East Queensland. Its last acquisition was the Mt Ommaney Centre, where they initially had a 25% stake from Vicinity Centres for $94.5 million, before taking full ownership by acquiring the remaining 75% stake from Nuveen Real Estate for $285 million.
Mr Rooney said that Queensland’s retail deals transacted year to date has totaled $3.7 billion, making it the clear standout in 2021. The deal demonstrates the significant confidence in the state’s retail market amid the pandemic.
“Investor interest has been underpinned by robust retail expenditure and forecast population growth, coupled with the fact that shopping centres in Queensland have been significantly less impacted by COVID than other major eastern seaboard markets,” Mr Rooney said.
“Following the strong momentum shift in the retail investment market in the second half of 2021, we expect transaction activity, sales volumes and pricing to continue to increase moving into 2022 across all national retail investment markets.”