Charter Hall has sold out of its investment in industrial property developer Foundation of Investors of Commercial and Industrial Property (CIP) after fully integrating its development capability in house.
Pan-Asian logistics real estate platform ESR acquired the half stake, signalling a further push into the Australian market after taking a 14.9 per cent stake in Centuria and an 18.06 per cent stake in Propertylink over a two-week period last year.
The 50 per cent stake realises an enterprise value of $102.5 million for Charter Hall, delivering a $9.5 million premium to its book value.
Ex-Goodman Group executive director Philip Pearce has been appointed chief executive of ESR Australia.
“The launch of ESR Australia underlines ESR’s commitment to a long-term presence in Australia,” Pearce said.
“[The] acquisition of CIP creates a strong foundation for our local business. CIP has a highly-experienced management team with a track record of delivering results, all of whom will remain in the business.”
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Charter Hall managing director David Harrison said the partnership has delivered an annual 10 per cent average cash franked dividend to shareholders.
“The partnership has also contributed over $1 billion of pre-leased investments contributing to our now $6 billion of industrial and logistics investment assets, together with a further $1.5 billion development pipeline.
“The partnership has delivered high quality pre-leased industrial investments to major tenant customers such as Australia Post, VW, Ceva, AHG, Coles, Target, Reject Shop, Couriers Please and many others, with a total of 30 pre-leased industrial investments secured.”
Charter Hall has 24 industrial projects under construction with its in-house development arm.
On Wednesday, the fund manager announced that two of its industrial funds had snapped up a purpose-built Coles distribution centre in Sydney’s south west.
The CIP transaction has been approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board and is expected to settle this month.
Main image: ESR logistics centre in Guangdong Province, China.
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