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Charter Hall Group (ASX: CHC) and its joint venture (JV) partner Allianz Real Estate have acquired supermarket group ALDI's $648 million Australian logistics portfolio.
Located in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, the distribution centres were designed and built by ALDI and sold to the JV with seven-year lease back initial terms plus multiple seven-year options.
The portfolio comprises four assets, including Sydney logistics facilities in Minchinbury and Prestons (the Outer West and South West suburbs of Sydney), whilst the Melbourne facility is located in the Dandenong industrial precinct and the Brisbane asset located in the Northern suburb of Brendale.
The JV sees Charter Hall's $6 billion Prime Industrial Fund (CPIF) acquire the portfolio in a 50/50 split with Allianz Real Estate.
"Combining the balance sheet strength of CPIF and its partner Allianz Real Estate gave Charter Hall a competitive advantage in convincing ALDI that we could deliver an unconditional executed transaction within a short timeframe, having recently secured FIRB (Foreign Investment Review Board) approval for the transaction," says Charter Hall managing director and group CEO David Harrison.
"Accessing the on-going growth and resilience of grocery retailing in Australia has been a consistent thematic driving the growth of our Industrial and Logistics portfolio toward $10 billion and beyond, now representing 25 per cent of our enlarged $40 billion platform."
Allianz Real Estate Asia Pacific CEO Rushbah Desai says the transaction is a continuation of the company tapping into the mega-trends underpinning the APAC region.
"This transaction is in line with our strategy of aligning our investments to secular mega trends in the Asia-Pacific region," says Desai.
"Demand for logistics in Australia is underpinned by growth in e-commerce, increasing international trade and the resilience of non-discretionary retail spending.
"We value our long-standing relationship with Charter Hall, and we are very excited to partner with them on the acquisition of the ALDI logistics portfolio. ALDI is known to us in Germany and we are pleased to broaden the relationship with them."
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