Charter Hall Tops Up Assets with $152m Southport Deal

Charter Hall has padded out its national convenience retail platform with the off-market acquisition of the Southport Park Shopping Centre on the Gold Coast for $152.5 million.

The 19,900sq m neighbourhood centre fronting Benowa and Ferry roads is on a 6.5ha mixed-use zoned corner site at Southport, the city’s main business hub and one of its fastest-growing suburbs.

Southport Park is one of just 10 neighbourhood centres in Australia anchored by three major supermarkets—Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. The asset also includes three mini-majors, about 40 specialty tenancies and a separate village precinct comprising 17 office and retail spaces.

The centre was sold by JVL Investment Group—the entity controlled by John Van Lieshout, the billionaire property developer and founder of Amart Furniture, which he built into one of Australia’s largest furniture retail chains before selling it in 2016.

The Southport deal lifts Charter Hall’s ownership of triple-supermarket-anchored centres to 40 per cent nationwide and adds scale to its $2.5-billion Charter Hall Convenience Retail Fund, which targets neighbourhood centres underpinned by non-discretionary spend.

Charter Hall Retail chief executive Ben Ellis said the asset aligned with the group’s conviction in the convenience retail sector, which he expected would continue to outperform discretionary malls.

He said the centre’s trading performance, low site coverage and future value-add potential were expected to deliver accretive returns.

The transaction was negotiated by JLL’s Jacob Swan and Ned McKendry on behalf of vendor JVL Investment Group.

▲ In September Charter Hall paid $145 million for Chullora Marketplace, 20km west of the Sydney CBD.

Charter Hall has this year stepped up its activity in the retail property market with a string of acquisitions centred on essential-service and convenience-based assets.

Its largest deal of the year prior to Southport was the $145-million acquisition in September of Chullora Marketplace in Sydney, also a triple-anchored suburban centre.

In Melbourne last month the group paid $74 million for Campbellfield Plaza, a fully leased sub-regional centre acquired from ISPT on a yield understood to be about 6.5 per cent.

Earlier in the year, Charter Hall also deployed around $200 million into additional convenience retail assets, including centres such as Corio Village, reinforcing its focus on grocery-led locations with stable income.

The group has further expanded its net-lease retail platform with about $151 million in Bunnings-anchored assets across New South Wales and Queensland, signalling a continued preference for defensive, long-WALE formats.