Inside the Strategy Fuelling Centennial’s Industrial Surge

Paul Ford didn’t plan on building one of Australia’s most active industrial platforms. He only hoped for “a couple of deals a year and a bit of money to step back and take things a bit easier”. Momentum had other ideas. Today, he is joint managing director of Centennial Property Group and the force behind its metro industrial infill push. Ford backed the city inner ring early—older sheds, tight land, short delivery runs, tenants who needed proximity not footprint. Centennial’s strategy lives inside the last-mile economy with smaller warehouses closer to customers for quicker. It worked because the market was thin, overlooked, hard to replace. While capital chased greenfield ease, he doubled down where supply stayed short and rents lifted faster. Centennial now holds about 85 assets and controls roughly two million square metres of industrial space with almost $500 million of industrial development now progressing. Adelaide born, Darwin hardened, Ford moved into Sydney through Jones Lang and Deutsche Bank before joining Charter Hall where he helped raise the industrial portfolio from about $50 million to nearly $6 billion over 11 years. At Charter Hall he worked beside chief executive David Harrison—someone he still calls one of the most influential voices in his career. Darwin sharpened instinct. Charter Hall built discipline. Centennial applies both. The Murarrie deal and a sliding door moment A move to Queensland shifted everything. Charter Hall was “great in terms of the support”, Ford says, but “for whatever reason I couldn’t go back and I thought shit, what do I do?”. ▲ Paul Ford began in Adelaide, hardened his skills in Darwin and now co-leads Centennial’s multibillion-dollar industrial platform. So he backed himself. While “trying to design a logo” for his new venture, an agent showed him a site at Murarrie near the Port of Brisbane. “I optioned that up for about $12 million and sort of had 60 days … 30 for DD and 30 to find the money.” He took the pitch to Sydney. “I put my little pack together with help from Airtasker and some former Charter Hall employees and we went to Sydney to find two or three people who might support me.” One of those meetings changed everything. “The first trip down here, I’d been in to see Centennial. I was on my way to the airport and got a call, they said Frank Wolf wants to see you.” The late Frank Wolf founded Abacus Property Group and was widely regarded in property circles for clear calls and quick decisions. He also had family ties into Centennial. His son, Jonathan Wolf, co-founded the business—then a lean syndicator with private capital backing—in 2011 with Lyle Hammerschlag. Ford changed his flight and went back. “They wanted to get into sheds [but] they didn’t have that expertise,” he says. “[Wolf] simply said it on the spot, ‘we’re not going to invest in your little fund but we’ll give you all the money for the whole fund … so I want you to set up an exclusive arrangement with us and that was it’.” The backing sparked Centennial’s logistics arm. From there the model became instinctive. Buy tight land, upgrade tired stock, lease early, sell when return peaks. Recycle capital by returning money to investors instead of holding to inflate funds under management (FUM). “You should be selling, not holding just for the FUM,” Ford says. Over seven years he estimates about $1.2 billion has been recycled this way. Centennial screens up to 350 assets a year and only buys what clears every filter. Capital alignment and expansion Centennial blends institutional capital with private money and always puts its own funds into a deal. “Institutional capital typically don’t pay anywhere near the same fees, and so you can put the two together and you can actually make the margins and it becomes reasonable margin,” Ford says. He explained how their structures often look with large global partners such as Brookfield and KKR . “That’ll be 80 per cent of the equity. Centennial will be 20 per cent, five of that will be balance sheet or us, because they always want real skin. “But then we’ll bring on another 15 per cent of our private capital to sit behind us … the global investors love it because they just see another level of alignment.” This model is now backing Centennial’s big moves. There’s the $61.35-million purchase of 15.4ha at 142 Marine Drive, Brisbane Airport with Phoenix Property Investors. It’s one of the last freehold parcels of scale in the northern Australia TradeCoast (ATC) and will deliver 40,570sq m of new logistics space with an end value near $240 million. Civil works begin shortly and completion runs into early 2026. Of the 15.4ha acquired, about 12.1ha can be developed—a detail Ford sees as upside, not limitation. ▲ This 38,750sq m Murarrie infill site, jointly held by Centennial and MaxCap, will be developed into a multi-building logistics and cold-storage estate. The deal lifts Centennial to nine assets in the TradeCoast worth more than $500 million across 21 hectares. Phoenix adds weight with more than $US17 billion in global management and a strong urban logistics mandate. “We’ve spent a considerable amount of time evaluating the site to maximise its full potential to extract value and we’re very happy with the attractive pricing reached for such a prominent land parcel with multiple options in a severely supply constrained location,” Ford says. Another move is taking shape in Murarrie, where Centennial and MaxCap are developing Gateway Industrial Park. The partners paid $21.45 million for 33 Queensport Road, a 38,750sq m infill site formerly home to Swire Cold Logistics. Plans include three buildings totalling 26,150sq m GLA, including a new cold storage facility and flexible mid-space warehousing for tenants from roughly 2050sq m to 9300 square metres. Fresh supply in this size bracket is rare in Queensland, which Ford sees as the opportunity. “There are limited new industrial and logistics developments targeting mid-space tenancies in the (roughly) 5000sq m range in the ATC scheduled for completion over the next 18 months,” he says. He expects leasing momentum well ahead of delivery in 2026. Ford’s strategy is also playing out beyond Brisbane. Centennial has moved in Sydney via a third joint venture with MaxCap , securing a 10.9ha industrial site at Kurnell in the Sutherland Shire. The plan is a multi-lot subdivision with refurbished warehousing and an expected end value near $160 million. In Queensland, Centennial has the green light for Riverview Industrial Park near Ipswich—a 19,000sq m logistics estate forming Stage One of a 12.2ha masterplan. ▲ Centennial has the green light to build Riverview Industrial Park near Ipswich. Across the past two years the group has sold 37 assets valued at $735 million and acquired 23 new assets worth $1.75 billion, including 18 industrial properties. It shows Ford’s approach remains the same—buy, improve, recycle capital, move forward. Where the cycle goes next Ford believes the next phase of industrial will be shaped by tenants, not rents. Automation and robotics are now industry standard. The big freight operators have the capital to invest, upgrade and keep improving. Smaller and mid-tier groups may not. “The challenge is covenant,” he says. “A lot of the operators cannot afford to keep up.” ▲ Paul Ford shares the Centennial growth story live on stage with The Urban Developer ’s Adam Di Marco. He expects the gap to widen. The logistics giants will move forward. The middle will thin. The cost of technology will do the sorting. Alongside logistics, Ford is building a second engine. Retail with industrial-style economics—metro large format, regional centres anchored by strong supermarkets, plus locations where land use offers two paths, warehouse or retail. “You can build shops or sheds,” he says. Optionality adds value and a Bundaberg deal shows how this plays out in real terms. Centennial acquired the town’s dominant shopping centre for about $100 million. Coles and Woolworths sit on the lease, supported by national tenants and strong daily trade. Importantly, Ford says, the site sits inside the urban core rather than fringe residential, so land value behaves more like inner-ring industrial land. Over the next year he expects retail to grow alongside sheds rather than behind them. New private capital vehicles are being shaped. Partnership discussions continue. The company’s growth will follow the same rules used to build the logistics engine. Stay in metro. Keep capital moving. Focus on scarcity, not scale. He began wanting only “a couple of deals a year and a bit of money”. Momentum came anyway—and Ford moved with it. Paul Ford shared his story in conversation with The Urban Developer founder Adam Di Marco on stage at the Industrial and Logistics Summit in Sydney.

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