Parkstone buys Adelaide, Wagga Wagga retail centres for over $40m 

Adelaide-based property investment manager Parkstone has bought two Woolworths-anchored retail centres in Adelaide and Wagga Wagga in New South Wales for more than $40 million.  

The Adelaide property was located in Virginia, in the city’s fast-growing northern suburbs.  

Parkstone said it was planning to partner with existing key tenants of the Adelaide property in a major renovation and repositioning over the next 12-18 months. 

The Woolworths Wagga Wagga property was a stand-alone supermarket with a very strong trading history of more than $40 million a year.  

Woolworths was set to undertake a major refurbishment of the property.  

The deals take the fund manager’s portfolio to more than $100 million and builds on its existing exposure to regional NSW.  

Parkstone already owns the Woolworths-anchored Riverdale Shopping Centre in Dubbo and a standalone Woolworths supermarket in Orange.  

Recent Parkstone acquisitions include a Drakes-anchored shopping centre in the beachside Adelaide suburb of Semaphore that settled last November.  

“The new acquisitions are a neat fit with our growth strategy of acquiring predominantly food-based retail properties which meet the needs of non-discretionary spenders and have the potential for income growth through physical improvement and innovative leasing strategies,” Parkstone managing director Tim Wilkin said.  

“They also have a natural synergy with our existing portfolio in terms of their regional colocation; the nature of their anchor tenancies; and the shared expectations of their consumer catchments along with the ability to unlock further value via the development of underutilised land. 

“Our experience – points to grocery-anchored retail centres in regional locations have continuing to perform well throughout the pandemic with positive sales growth of anchor tenants across the portfolio.” 

Savills introduced both off-market deals to Parkstone. 

Savills South Australian Managing Director Rino Carpinelli, who managed the Virginia transaction, said his office was continuing to receive a lot of enquiries for convenient, every- day needs shopping centres. 

Savills’ National Director Retail Investments Steven Lerche managed the Wagga Wagga transaction with Savill’s Director, Retail Investments in Melbourne, Rick Silberman. 

“While there is a deep buyer pool for a retail asset of this calibre, the price and yield achieved off-market reflects the strength of this sector,” Lerche said. 

“There have been several sales in the Victorian metropolitan market that have sold at tighter yields, but the last regional sale was the sale of Woolworths Kyabram in July for $23.8million.” 

Recent retail deals include QIC settling on the sale of its half stake in the Westfield Helensvale shopping centre on the Gold Coast to IP Generation Holdings for $185 million this week.  

Last week, the Pottsville Central retail centre on the far north coast of Northern NSW sold under the hammer for $10.2 million, reflecting a yield of 4.58%.   

Last month, Woolworths Group sold the Sapphire Marketplace shopping centre in Bega, New South Wales to a private investor for $54.05 million, representing a 6.5% capitalisation rate.  

A private investor bought the Woolworths-anchored Fernvale Village shopping centre, located an hour west of Brisbane, for $35.55 million last month as well.  

 

Interested in the retail property market? Take a look back at Australia’s biggest single retail sales in 2021. 

Benn Dorrington
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Benn is a former editor of ANZPJ. He has worked as a real estate journalist at the Herald Sun, S&P Global Market Intelligence and Real Estate Fund Intelligence Europe. He has worked in media and communications in Australia and the UK since 2010.
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