Deals of the Week: 11 January 2019

Deals of the Week: 11 January 2019

MELBOURNE: Chinese-backed developer Longriver has leapt out of the blocks in 2019, snapping up a major corner site in the Melbourne CBD for almost $26 million from prominent criminal lawyer Alex Lewenberg and his family.Known as the “Queens Collection”, the 760-square-metre site on the corner of Queen and Little Lonsdale streets at the gateway to Melbourne’s legal precinct houses two mixed-use commercial buildings, the six-level EOS Centre at 288 Queen Street and the four-level China Square building at 328 Little Lonsdale Street.—AFR.

MELBOURNE: US private equity giant Blackstone has sold a large-format retail centre in Melbourne’s north to a local developer for around $11 million as it progressively sells down its Australian retail portfolio.The 3306-square-metre centre stands on more than half a hectare of land at 106-126 Main Street in Greensborough and is anchored by a 2375sq m Savers second-hand retail store, six smaller shops and a medical centre as well as a large carpark.—AFR.

LONDON: Lendlease has won preferred bidder status for the £1.5 billion ($2.7 billion) overhaul of a major urban renewal site in the centre of Birmingham, Britain, adding to its rapidly growing European pipeline but also exposing itself to the whims of another Labour-led council the likes of which have previously cancelled contracts. The 15-year Birmingham Smithfield redevelopment will revamp an old market district in the middle of Britain’s second-largest city into a mixed-use retail, leisure and residential precinct with more than 2000 homes.—AFR.

SURFERS PARADISE: NSW hotel magnate Jerry Schwartz has made his first foray into Queensland, buying the Hilton Surfers Paradise for just under $70 million, well down on its initial asking price of more than $80m. One of the newest five-star hotels on the Gold Coast, the twin-tower Hilton Surfers Paradise hit the market last July after its owner, private Chinese family group Ja Feng, had difficulty securing solid returns.—The Australian.

SYDNEY: The Centuria Metropolitan REIT has completed its transition to a pure-play office trust, after selling its last industrial asset—a large industrial warehouse in South Granville, Sydney—to specialist industrial property investment firm Pipeclay Lawson for $24.2 million. It did so at a healthy 17 per cent premium to book value and more than $8 million above what it paid for the 15,302-square-metre facility in late 2014, when it bought it off syndicator Sentinel for $16.1 million.—AFR.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA: Clifton Hills Station in the far north-east corner of South Australia has been sold to Australian beef cattle farmers Viv Oldfield and Donny Costello of Crown Pastoral Company. Covering more than 16,500 square kilometres, Clifton Hills was marketed as the second-biggest farming property in Australia and the world with only former S. Kidman & Co property Anna Creek bigger, at more than 24,000 square kilometres.—AFR.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Supermarket giant Woolworths has sold a Geraldton mall in regional Western Australia to acquisitive fund manager MPG for $14.8 million. The Seacrest Shopping Centre, which opened in August 2017, sold on a passing yield of 7.25 per cent with a weighted lease expiry of just over nine years.—AFR.