Nikos Takes Half Share in Broadmeadows Central

Melbourne-based Nikos Property Group has acquired a 50 per cent stake in the Broadmeadows Central shopping centre in its second such partnership with Australian Stock Exchange-listed Vicinity Centres.

Nick Andrianakos, a Greek migrant who made his billion-dollar fortune from a parcel of petrol stations dating back to the mid-seventies, paid $134.5 million for the half share.gg

The CBRE-brokered off-market deal follows a $138.2-million acquisition by Nikos of a half share in Vicinity’s Colonnades Shopping Centre in Adelaide about a year ago.

Broadmeadows Central, about 19km north of central Melbourne, counts Kmart, Aldi, Coles and Woolworths supermarkets as well as a Hoyts Cinema among more than 115 stores within its 129,703 square metres.

Under the latest deal with Nikos, Vicinity will continue to manage the shopping centre.

CBRE’s head of Pacific retail capital markets Simon Rooney said the acquisition continued the trend of private investment groups, syndicates and, to a lesser extent, institutional investors taking out passive stakes in retail assets alongside institutional managers.

▲ A Kmart, Hoyts Cinema and three supermarkets are among more than 115 stores in the centre.

“This allows institutional partners to reduce gearing and maximise the use of capital while maintaining management fee income,” he said.

Rooney pointed to Telstra Super’s $120.5-million sale of a half stake in Sydney’s Carlingford Court to property investment managers JY Group as a further example.

On the heels of the sale, Vicinity will now move to sell the adjoining Homemaker Centre in Broadmeadows.  An expressions-of-interest campaign will begin next week for the 33,500-square-metre centre.

In February this year, Vicinity and Salta Properties unveiled ambitious plans for a $900-million redevelopment of the 19-year-old Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre in Richmond, a move that promises to transform the fringe Melbourne neighbourhood.

And a month earlier, Vicinity moved a step closer to its ambitious plans to transform the centre of Bankstown with the New South Wales government approving changes to allow increased building heights and floor space ratios.