Charter Hall and JV partner Allianz Real Estate acquires $648 million ALDI leased logistics portfolio

Charter Hall Group managed CPIF is pleased to announce it has extended its relationship with global institutional investor Allianz Real Estate, acting on behalf of several Allianz group companies, to acquire the $648 million portfolio of ALDI logistics assets located in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The ALDI distribution centres were designed and built by ALDI to a high-quality specification and sold with seven-year lease back initial terms plus multiple seven-year options.

The four asset portfolio comprises Sydney logistics facilities located within prime industrial locations of Minchinbury and Prestons within the Outer West and South West suburbs of Sydney, whilst the Melbourne facility is located in the prime Dandenong industrial precinct, with the Brisbane asset located in the Northern suburb of Brendale.

The purchaser is a Charter Hall managed partnership combining the $6 billion wholesale fund CPIF with Allianz Real Estate as a 50/50 joint venture partner.

David Harrison, Managing Director and Group CEO of Charter Hall said “We are delighted to once again extend our cross-sector relationship with ALDI who will become a sizeable cross sector tenant customer. Further, 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 approval for the transaction.”

“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” said Mr Harrison.

“This transaction is in line with our strategy of aligning our investments to secular mega trends in the Asia-Pacific region. Demand for logistics in Australia is underpinned by growth in e-commerce, increasing international trade and the resilience of non-discretionary retail spending. This will provide our investors an attractive distribution yield” said Rushabh Desai, Asia Pacific CEO of Allianz Real Estate.

“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” said Mr Desai.

JLL led by Tony Iuliano negotiated the transaction on behalf of ALDI.