Real estate funds manager Centuria Capital Group has secured a $500-million institutional investment mandate with a significant US private investor.
The mandate has a three-asset seed portfolio worth about $76 million and will focus on acquiring assets in supply-constrained infill sites across Australia.
The Last Mile Logistics Partnership’s (LMLP) seed assets are within Melbourne’s urban industrial precincts and transacted off-market this month.
Centuria joint chief executive Jason Huljich said the organisation now had a $6-billion, 160-asset industrial portfolio that focused on infill opportunities, which was underpinned by low vacancy rates.
“Centuria has significant experience in securing high-quality industrial real estate across Australia, which is increasingly recognised by domestic and offshore institutional capital,” Huljich said.
“Centuria’s institutional capital investments now total $2.2 billion across the logistics, healthcare, daily needs retail and office property sectors.
“The new LMLP mandate adds to Centuria’s deep distribution network as we continue to secure further capital sources across the group.”
Huljich said it was the second large-scale institutional capital partnership the group had secured in the past 12 months.
Australia’s industrial vacancy rate of less than 1 per cent is one of the lowest globally and these supply constraints are driving exceptional rental growth, particularly within tightly held last-mile urban infill markets.
In its review of the Australian industrial sector, global property consultants Knight Frank found vacancies in east coast capital cities fell by 18 per cent in the first quarter of the year.
Just 445,000sq m of available space remains vacant along the eastern seaboard, a record low.
And just 10 per cent of that remaining space is available in Sydney—39 per cent of it in Melbourne, while Brisbane accounts for 51 per cent.
Centuria offloaded an industrial asset earlier this year in Brisbane.
