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Charter Hall’s Social Infrastructure REIT (ASX: CQE) has today announced the acquisition of two childcare portfolios comprising 21 properties for a total purchase price of $134.3 million.
The acquisition will grow CQE’s footprint in the Western Australia and Melbourne markets, and push the REIT’s total assets under management to nearly $2 billion.
Included in the purchase is the Western Australia Bowman Group Childcare Portfolio which comprises 18 operating childcare centres, with 13 located in Perth and the remaining five located regionally.
All of the rental income is underpinned by Australia’s largest childcare operators - Goodstart Early Learning and G8 Education.
The WA portfolio comprises a total combined site area of 47,157sqm, providing accommodation for 1,752 long day care places.
The remaining properties are in Melbourne, and includes three newly constructed childcare centres which are 100 per cent leased to Nino Early Learning.
“We are pleased to add these quality childcare properties with strong fundamentals to the portfolio and build on our tenant customer relationship with these three operators,” CQE fund manager Travis Butcher said.
“The addition of these assets will result in CQE’s gross assets exceeding $1.9 billion and continuing to be the largest listed social infrastructure property fund in Australia.
“Further, these acquisitions have enabled us to upgrade our FY22 forecast distribution guidance by 9.6 per cent from FY21 to 17.2 cents per unit (cpu), which is a great result for our investor customers.”
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