A-Reit to acquire logistics portfolio in Australia for A$1.013b

ASCENDAS Real Estate Investment Trust (A-Reit) is looking to make its maiden acquisition of 26 logistics properties in Australia for A$1.013 billion from GIC and Frasers Property Australia.

Tan Ser Ping, executive director and CEO of the Ascendas Fund Management, the manager of A-Reit, said: "The proposed acquisition, comprising 26 prime logistics properties located on freehold land in the key cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, will establish A-Reit as the eighth largest industrial landlord in Australia. In addition, this will further enhance our customer base with high calibre end-users (such as Wesfarmers, Mondelez, Pacific Brands, API, Nestlé, Officemax) and multinational third-party logistics tenants (such as CEVA, DB Schenker, and Linfox). It also diversifies A-Reit's portfolio geographically. The portfolio has 24 tenants with 30 triple net leases."

The proposed acquisition is expected to generate a net property income yield of about 6.4 per cent pre-transaction costs in the first year (6 per cent post-transaction costs). The target portfolio has a committed weighted average lease expiry (WALE) of 6.1 years as at June 30. The proposed acquisition is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2015.