Blackstone is selling off Greensborough Plaza as exits retail property in Australia.
US private equity giant Blackstone is close to selling its last major shopping centre in Australia, ending a run in the sector that began in 2014.
Despite being unable to get a $3.5bn float away in the last boom, the company is capitalising the more recent rise of large retail transactions to sell Greensborough Plaza in Melbourne’s northeast for more than $350m.
Growthpoint Properties Australia’s investment unit is in talks to buy the asset, but the parties and sales agents CBRE and JLL declined to comment.
The impending deal continues a trend in which investment managers are now swooping on larger retail assets, buying them as institutions also return to the market in force.
While office properties have been in the doldrums amid high vacancy rates and the threat of AI looming over workforces, retail properties are producing strong returns. The latest surge was led by small investment houses that rapidly grew a presence in retail property, including Fawkner Property, MA Financial and JY Group.
These nimble players picked up assets that larger institutions were selling to cut their gearing or meet redemptions. Larger players, including superannuation funds like ART and Cbus Property, have followed them back into the market.
The Melbourne retail centre is the last asset in a portfolio the company assembled during the property boom but pulled back from floating in 2017. The plan was hit by the emergence of e-commerce and, later, values were reset by the Covid crisis.
Blackstone has been gradually selling its shopping centre portfolio. Last October, MA Financial and Singapore’s Keppel REIT bought Top Ryde City Shopping Centre in Sydney for $525m and it previously sold other assets along the eastern seaboard.
Large shopping centres are back in favour as many have also reset their strategies, focusing less on department stores and switching more to convenience shopping and omni-channel retailing. They also benefit from their well-located sites, parts of which could be rezoned for residential property. It is also difficult to assemble and secure such large sites and build new shopping centres in metropolitan areas.
The other major shopping centre sale this year, a half interest in Adelaide’s Westfield Marion, is also progressing, with investment house JY Group in due diligence at about $670m. Forza Capital has also made a play for Myer Melbourne, which is being sold by a combination of Abacus, Vicinity and Charter Hall.
Combined, the deals will show that big retail transactions are on the agenda for both private and institutional capital. The liquid market for large centres is in contrast to office towers in most parts of the country, which have stalled.
The convenience-focused regional shopping centre is in the heart of the Greensborough Activity Centre, 17km northeast of Melbourne’s CBD.
The 59,117sq m centre is anchored by Coles, Aldi, Kmart, Target and Hoyts Cinema, with a major tenant weighted average lease expiry of 5.6 years by income. The first level of fresh food and convenience retail is performing well, generating more than $165m in annual turnover. The 6.7ha site has the potential to expand the retail space and add a mixed-use element.
Growthpoint been growing its funds business, which is separate from its balance sheet focused on office and industrial assets. It bought Fortius Funds Management in 2022 and manages $1.7bn for investors. It has office, retail and mixed-use properties across value-add and opportunistic strategies.