The Straits Trading Company has bought two office buildings in Docklands, Melbourne for $150 million, as the Singapore-listed company bets on the city’s post-COVID recovery.
The deal comprised the adjacent office properties at 1010 La Trobe Street and the Innovation Building at 192 Harbour Esplanade, as well as 163 parking bays.
The 1010 La Trobe asset was a nine-storey A-grade office with 15,354 sqm of net lettable area.
The fully occupied property had the Department of Home Affairs and Victoria Rail Track as its key tenants.
The Innovation Building was a five-storey A-grade office with 5,779 sqm of NLA and was mostly occupied by the government-owned National Broadband Network Company.
The adjacent properties have a tram station at its doorstep and are located near Southern Cross train station.
STC said the properties presented value-add opportunities including a planned upgrade at 1010 La Trobe with a new end-of-trip facility, redesigned ground floor lobby and a refurbishment of communal facilities on each floor.
“Diversification in a matrix of geographical markets and asset classes will offer us flexibility in how we realise investment gains in the foreseeable future as business activities in different economies recover at varying pace,” said Desmond Tang, Chief Executive Officer of Straits Real Estate, a subsidiary of Straits Trading Company.
“The strength of our real estate portfolio with attractive recurring income and healthy operating yields will ensure that the group comes out of the pandemic stronger than before.
“To that end, we will continue to seek opportunities for enhanced returns in key markets.”
Recent Melbourne office deals include Hong Kong-listed Link REIT entering into a $596 million deal with Oxford Properties to invest in an office portfolio including the 567 Collins Street building in Melbourne last week.
Other deals include Rathdrum Properties buying the eight-level office building at 570 St Kilda Road from Terraplex for $67.6 million last week and Irongate Group’s acquisition of a stake in a grade-A office building in Cremorne for $130 million last December.
Centuria Office REIT purchased a South Melbourne office for $205.1 million last September.
Australia’s office investment market recorded $21.9 billion in transactions in 2021, up 60% on the previous year, according to Real Capital Analytics.
Interested in the office market? Take a look back at Australia’s biggest single office sales in 2021.