Building approvals soared more than expected in January, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

ABS data showed the number of buildings approved rose a seasonally adjusted 6.8 per cent to 17,514 in the month.

That compares to an initially reported 16,141 approvals in December, seasonally adjusted.

Bloomberg economists had expected the figures to show a 0.5 per cent rise in approvals during the month.

Building approvals are now 34.6 per cent higher, seasonally adjusted, than in the same month last year, higher than an expected 24 per cent lift.

Approvals for private sector houses rose 8.3 per cent in the month, and the "other dwellings" category, which includes apartment blocks and townhouses, was up 4.6 per cent.

St George Bank economist Janu Chan says the figures show lower interest rates have boosted the residential housing sector.

"It's an encouraging sign that residential construction is going to provide that strong contribution to growth this year," she said.

"It will assist in filling the (mining investment) gap and the RBA has been looking for non-mining parts of the economy to start picking up and this is further evidence this will be occurring."

RBC Capital Markets senior economist Su-Ling Ong said it looked like the housing sector was starting to gain some strength.

"It was a pretty decent jump in approvals in the month of January," she said.

"That underlying trend continues to strengthen and the composition was very good as well. It was driven by a rise in approvals for private sector houses.

"It's very much consistent with this upswing in residential housing construction gaining a bit of momentum."

Chinese buyers are expected to purchase $44 billion worth of Australian residential property over the next seven years, according to a report released today by Credit Suisse.

The investment bank estimates that 12 per cent of all new housing purchases and up to 18 per cent in Sydney and 14 per cent in Melbourne are by Chinese buyers.

Non-permanent residents are restricted to purchases of newly built properties in Australia.

According to the report, Chinese buyers comprise an estimated $5bn worth of property purchases in Australia per annum.

The findings follow Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) data that shows Chinese investors were the largest source of foreign investment in Australian property in 2012-13 (China ramps up Australian property purchases 1 March 2014).

The number of Chinese who are able to afford an apartment in Sydney is expected to rise by 30 per cent by 2020.

Chinese buyers bought $24bn of housing over the last seven years.

The report warns that the amount of foreign investor interest could distort the Australian property market with valuation methods like house price to local income ratios becoming obsolete.

"Residents of central London have known this for some time. Many of which are well paid investment bankers but are still struggling to buy in the capital where many of the owners are wealthy individuals from the Middle East, North Africa and other parts of Europe," the report said.

Australia's $97 billion Future Fund has upped its exposure to the recovering US real estate market, teaming with Dallas-based group Hillwood, which is controlled by Ross Perot Jr, for a $US1bn ($1.11bn) industrial property partnership.

The pair, which have worked together before, are advancing plans to make direct and indirect investments in industrial real estate, mainly large warehouses, across North America.

Their venture is expected to have an equity of $US400 million - more than half of which has been identified and committed - and the partners will aim to buy properties over the next four years. “The new fund provides the investment flexibility to target the highest risk-adjusted returns available across the industrial warehouse asset class, without being restricted by a narrow investment target,” Hillwood chairman Mr Perot said.

The deal replicates the Future Fund’s earlier successful play with Hillwood and adds to its presence in the US. Another Australian player, Goodman Group, is active in the US industrial market, and has teamed up with Birtcher Development to build a $US1.5bn empire.

The Future Fund has been an active player in the US and in 2012 placed $US350m, with real estate fund manager Berkshire Property Advisors, in multi-family complexes. It also invested in the sector through the giant Brookfield Asset Management, which separately led it into a consortium that took a major stake in mall owner General Growth Properties.

While the sovereign wealth fund declined to comment on its latest move, the play comes as savvy private Australian operators shift back into the US.

Most notably, businessman Daniel Grollo has shifted to New York and won the debt backing of international bank Citibank for a Grocon-led group’s purchase of the near $US800m Park Avenue Tower in midtown Manhattan.

Melbourne developer MAB Corporation also struck a joint venture with New York-listed Inland Real Estate Corporation to develop a portfolio of up to 20 shopping centres throughout the south eastern US with a total market value of $US325m.

Under the deal MAB, owned by BRW rich-listers Andrew and Michael Buxton, will develop the centres for Inland using its US offshoot MAB American Retail Partners. The focus for the venture will be on the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Virginia and Washington. MAB has previously developed six shopping centres in the US through its venture MAB Rosenthal. Another wealthy Melbourne private investor, Michael Drapac, launched two wholesale investment funds focused on land banks and development sites in the US last year. That attracted money from high net-worth investors and family offices.

Some Australian heavyweights are already back investing in the US, with QIC last September setting up a $US2bn mall joint venture with New York-listed Forest City Enterprises.

The giant AustralianSuper last year awarded QIC a mandate for US property, thought to be between $500m and $1bn, and other major industry funds are expected to follow its lead and issue mandates with investment managers for US property.

First State Super, a $40bn public service super fund, is believed to be looking closely at investments in US real estate as it looks to reduce its exposure to the Australian dollar.

The $28bn industry super fund for the retail industry REST is also thought to be eyeing direct investment in real estate in the US through its in-house investment manager Super Investment Management.

HostPlus, which has $14bn in funds under management, has been looking to invest in offshore real estate, though its focus has been on Asia.

UniSuper is also believed to be looking at increasing its investment in US property trusts. It already holds a stake in Simon Property Group.

Meanwhile, ASX-listed US Masters Residential Property Fund, managed by Dixon Advisory, recently raised $87.3m to fund the acquisition of more properties in New York, though the raising fell short of its $120m target with only 65 per cent of existing shareholders participating in the offer.

Another investment banker is leaving the industry to work for a listed real estate company.

Morgan Stanley's Sydney-based managing director Paul Snushall is joining construction giant Lend Lease as head of integrated solutions and takes his gardening leave from the bank as of next week.

Other recent departures from local real estate investment banking teams into listed property companies include Darren Rehn and Simon Shakesheff, who both joined Stockland last year from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

And this month it emerged that Credit Suisse's second in charge of real estate, Chris Bedingfield, will leave the group to join former Deutsche investment banker Justin Blaess in launching a funds management business.

Commonwealth Bank’s exit from its managed property platform should be completed today when securityholders vote on the internalisation of the management of the $6 billion CFS Retail Property Trust Group.

Of the transactions generated by CBA’s decision last year to end its external management of three property trust groups, the CFS deal is easily the biggest and most significant. CBA is set to gain $460 million from the internalisation of the management rights to the trust as well as freeing up its ability to release another $600 million over time by selling its own securities in the trust.

With John Gandel’s 16.8 per cent holding in the trust supporting the deal and no apparent opposition to it, the transaction should go through smoothly, marking a major moment in the history of listed property trusts.

CBA announced its exits from CFS, the Commonwealth Property Office Fund (CPA) and the Kiwi Property Income Fund last July. The internalisation of management of the Kiwi fund went smoothly and released about $70 million of cash for CBA. The CPA process resulted in a bidding battle for the fund that saw Dexus Property Group prevail over GPT in a deal that saw it pay the bank a $41 million ‘facilitation fee’.

CBA’s decision to quit its externally managed property platforms is consistent with the post-crisis shift in the listed property trust model away from external management to internalisation. Arguably, this better aligns the interests of securityholders and their managers.

The next big internalisation will be the restructuring of the Westfield group. This will see Westfield merge its Australian retail property assets and management into the separately-listed Westfield Retail Trust to form the new Scentre Group while Westfield Group will be a purely international vehicle.

That proposal has been controversial, with some questioning the value implied by the terms for the management rights Westfield Group is vending into the deal. The terms see a $1.9 billion reduction in Westfield Retail Trust’s net tangible assets and an $8 billion increase in its debt.

The Lowys appear confident that once investors have received the explanatory memorandum and understand the price-tag placed on the management rights and the value that will flow from them, the scepticism will disappear. They have made it clear the terms won’t be altered.

It is instructive that, since the proposal was announced on December 4 last year, Westfield Retail securities have out-performed those of Westfield Group. They have risen 4 per cent while Westfield Group’s have fallen 3.25 per cent.

That’s inconsistent with the view that there will be a massive value transfer from Westfield Retail to Westfield Group.

If the general move away from externally-managed vehicles is a philosophical one, driven by the preference of the market for alignment of interests and the removal of potential conflicts, CBA’s decision last year was also motivated by its own self-interest. That’s mainly reflected in the CFS transaction.

Through the value of the management rights and the securities it held in the trusts to protect those management rights, CBA had more than $1 billion tied up.

In the post-crisis regulatory regime, where it has to hold 50 cents of capital for every dollar of those investments, they represent capital-intensive, low-returning exposures. (In the future, CBA will have to hold $1 of capital for each dollar of investment.)

The combination of management fee income and yield on its securities in the trust would generate an income return of roughly 8 per cent or so for CBA.

CBA itself generated a return on equity of closer to 19 per cent. You don’t need to be a mathematician to realise that the capital tied up in the funds would produce much better returns if redeployed in the group’s core banking and wealth management businesses. There’s potentially an extra $120 million or so of annual earnings to be had.

For banks, there is pressure to build up capital reserves and become as capital-efficient as possible. This is not surprising, given the uncertainty about where the eventual requirements for capital will settle once the new prudential regime is established by domestic and international regulators.

APRA, which will apply a one percentage point surcharge on the four major banks because of their systemic importance, has warned them not to conduct material capital management programs or pay special dividends until the framework is settled.

In that light, CBA’s exit from the trusts conforms to post-crisis notions of improved corporate governance and reflects its own post-crisis priorities.

The Westfield transaction doesn’t, of course, have that extra regulatory dimension. However, if securityholders can be convinced that the terms are fair and reasonable, it could result in less potential for conflicts of interest (or perceptions of conflict) between securityholders and their management and a quite rational split of high-quality, low-risk, largely passive Australasian retail property assets from the higher-risk international business with its stronger development profile.

Securityholders in the CFS Retail Property Trust have voted in favour of a proposal to internalise the group's management.

Investors have also supported a proposal for the trust to acquire the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's retail property asset management business and start managing a number of wholesale property funds.

Richard Haddock, chairman of Commonwealth Managed Investments Ltd, the responsible entity of the trust, said the vote was a strong endorsement of the proposal to create one of Australia's largest fully integrated and independently managed retail property groups.

The deal is conditional on judicial advice, as CMIL seeks to confirm it is justified in implementing the internalisation proposal.

Private equity firm TPG, the owner of Ingham Enterprises, reportedly wants more than $600 million to sell and leaseback of two big property portfolios.

The Australian Financial Review reports that TPG, which picked up the famous Ingham family brand a year ago for $880 million, has chosen the sale-lease back option rather than floating the company.

There was speculation late last year that a sharemarket listing could generate up to $1 billion for TPG, though structures and details were not ironed out.

Private equity firm TPG, the owner of Ingham Enterprises, reportedly wants more than $600 million to sell and leaseback of two big property portfolios.

The Australian Financial Review reports that TPG, which picked up the famous Ingham family brand a year ago for $880 million, has chosen the sale-lease back option rather than floating the company.

There was speculation late last year that a sharemarket listing could generate up to $1 billion for TPG, though structures and details were not ironed out.

Property fund manager 360 Capital Group is floating its office REIT for $2 a share in a $155 million initial public offering, with the bookbuild planned for later this month.

The group will become one of the few listed pure-play office REITs, following a wave of consolidation in the sector. The property investment and funds management group already has a listed industrial fund and several unlisted funds.

DataRoom has learned that existing shareholders will be given priority on up to $25m of the $155m offer, which will see 77.5m shares issued at $2 apiece.

The bookbuild will be run on 21 March, with the prospectus to be lodged on 24 March. Listing is set down for 23 April.

The value of the office fund’s portfolio is $235m, with an enviable occupancy rate of 99.6 per cent. Post-float it will have a market capitalisation of $155m.

In paperwork for the float, 360 Capital forecasts its fiscal 2015 distribution yield at 8.5 per cent, compared with an industry average of 5.9 per cent. No distribution will be paid for the March quarter.

The office fund owns complexes in Burwood, NSW, and Canberra.

On its website, 360 Capital says that since it took over management of the fund in December 2010 more than $200m in assets were sold to reduce debt.

(Reporting by Amanda.Saunders@businessspectator.com.au)

Editing by Victoria.Thieberger@businessspectator.com.au )

Local investors have traditionally avoided investing in hotel groups because of their volatile income streams and exposure to shaky tourism markets. But Mantra is pitching itself as a group more focused on the corporate market with growth prospects in major capital cities, and even with an exposure to Asia.

It is understood that Mantra will look to pour some of the float proceeds -- it is looking to raise between $397 million and $446m -- into securing new hotel management contracts.

Mantra's portfolio already spans 111 properties and more than 11,400 rooms across Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, and is second only to Accor locally.

The offer is being handled by joint lead managers UBS and Macquarie Capital, supported by Ord Minnett and Morgans Financial. The float offer price range has been set at between $2 to $2.60 a security, which would see the group have a market capitalisation of between $476m and $549m.

Mantra Group chief executive Bob East, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, and key executives are likely to retain a stake in the company.

At issue pricing, the company would sit on an enterprise value to forecast earnings ratio of between 10.3 times to 11.6 times. With the bookbuild set for March 25, some said the group probably received conditional support from cornerstone investors after a non-deal roadshow earlier this year.

CVC Asia Pacific paid $450m for Mantra, previously known as Stella and once part of the failed Gold Coast group MFS, which collapsed spectacularly in early 2008 with debts of $3 billion.

CVC attempted to sell Mantra two years ago, but the sale foundered when it could not agree on price with several private equity groups looking at it as well as a handful of international hotel companies hoping to bolster their strength in the Asia-Pacific.This time Mantra, which has restructured its debts and lifted earnings, is expected to succeed.

"I think the market is very different than 2012 and you are accessing professional investors who can't normally access these types of businesses," said one Mantra executive connected with the IPO, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The initial feedback has been very encouraging, but no decision has been made as to whether we will proceed."

The Reserve Bank of Australia is perhaps closer to intervening in the housing market than many expect. A freedom of information request indicates that it has considered a range of macroprudential policies designed to limit the systemic risk arising from the Australian housing market.

Back in February I recommended that the RBA follow in the footsteps of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and introduce restrictions on the level of high loan-to-valuation ratio lending (A housing policy lesson from New Zealand, February 19). These policies have led to a sharp fall in risky mortgage lending in New Zealand and price falls in recent months.

The FOI release comes just days after RBA governor Glenn Stevens reaffirmed that the bank ‘had thought about this [macroprudential controls]’ and had ‘some preliminary discussions with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’. This follows months of discussion -- from myself among others -- that the housing market is at risk of overheating.

Housing accounts for over 60 per cent of household wealth and is valued at over $5 trillion. Our major banks have massive exposure to housing assets and state governments are overly reliant on stamp duty to balance the books.

I don’t necessarily prescribe to the notion that a housing bust is imminent, but I recognise the systemic risks. The reality is that the housing market has become increasingly cyclical -- following two decades of strong growth, house prices have suffered three downturns over the past decade.

These downturns occurred despite solid income growth, low unemployment and the mining boom. What would happen if the economy suffers a genuine setback, such as rising unemployment, a sharp fall in mining investment or government austerity measures? How does a combination of the three sound?

Obviously this line of thinking is also present within the RBA. Comments from Stevens indicate that they are not immediately concerned about the housing market overheating but recognise that if momentum was to shift up a gear that would not be a desirable outcome.

Among macroprudential policy tools examined, including New Zealand-style caps on high LVRs, the RBA head of financial stability, Luci Ellis, believes that ‘the most promising policy response seems to be to introduce a regulatory regime that automatically requires larger interest buffers in loan affordability calculations when interest rates are low’.

So, for example, banks would be forced to consider whether a loan applicant could service the loan if interest rates rose by 4 per cent as opposed to current lower buffers. The advantage of this method over caps on high LVR lending is that it doesn’t exclude lenders who can service high LVRs from the market. On the downside though, it doesn’t protect high LVR borrowers from negative equity during a downturn and it would presumably be easier for banks to ‘game’ an interest rate buffer than a fixed lending rule.

The RBA has yet to make any decision -- and this FOI doesn’t indicate that they will -- but at least they are having the appropriate conversations. The RBA also -- and correctly -- recognises that macroprudential policies are only a temporary solution to an overheated housing market.

Ellis noted that the “tax system can shape the incentives to engage in leveraged property speculation” and “investors were no doubt also influenced by the relatively generous tax treatments of property-related investment expenses”. In short, negative gearing and the capital gains tax both encourage speculative activity and both could be fine-tuned to reduce the level of speculation.

The RBA has perhaps been slow to address macroprudential policy issues for the housing sector but I wouldn’t be surprised if they change their tune soon. The economy itself may demand it, as the RBA tries to balance a soft business sector with strong house price growth. Macroprudential policies would allow the RBA to continue to promote low rates to support the business sector without needing to worry about whether they will create a house price bubble. That is the type of policy flexibility that I’m sure the RBA would love right now. 

Much ink has been spilled on the so-called Chinese “invasion” of Australia’s property sector. Here, Business Spectator puts many of the media reports to our myth buster test.

The first question: is China the largest investor in real estate in this country? The answer is yes and no. China is the largest investor in Australian bricks and mortars between 2012 and 2013, according to the latest Foreign Investment Review Board report.

However if you take a longer perspective, looking over last four years, the US is in fact the largest investor in real estate in Australia  ($19.3 billion) over that time, with China the runner-up ($16.2 billion). Britain is the third largest investor at $12.3 billion.

The second question is whether China accounts for a disproportionate percentage of total foreign investment in real estate sector in Australia.

Business Spectator looks at the data from last year, when China was the largest investor in real estate in Australia for the first time, surpassing both Canada and the US.  At $5.9 billion, Chinese investment account for 19 per cent of the total foreign investment.

However, what is undisputed is that the Chinese appetite for Australian real estate is growing fast while other foreign investors, like Americans, British and Singaporeans, are losing interest in Australian bricks and mortar.

The Bank of Queensland has reportedly defended the self-managed super fund (SMSF) sector, saying it has been incorrectly blamed for house price appreciation.

The Australian Financial Review reports comments from Bank of Queensland general manager of wealth management Tony Cahill, who pointed out that residential property has been declining as a percentage of SMSF assets for about three years.

“When you look at the ATO [Australian Taxation Office] statistics, commercial property dominates residential property,” Mr Cahill said of SMSF assets, according to the AFR. 

The demand for home loans was flat in January against expectations of a lift, as the value of home loans provided to investors fell, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The data showed the number of home loans granted in January held steady at a seasonally adjusted 51,054.

Bloomberg analysts expected the number of housing finance commitments to lift by 0.5 per cent in the month.

However, total housing finance by value fell by 0.4 per cent in January, seasonally adjusted, to $26.86 billion.

The value of loans for investment housing fell by 3.3 per cent in the month to $10.34 billion, after rising by 40 per cent over 2013.

By comparison, housing loans to first home buyers increased by just 1.5 per cent over the year to January, after declining for most of 2013.

National Australia Bank senior economist Spiros Papadopoulos expects housing finance to bounce back in coming months.

"I wouldn't get too concerned about one month of data," he said.

"We have seen a strong upward trend over the past year and given low interest rates will be around for most of this year, we expect these series to bounce back in coming months.

"It's encouraging that we have seen small growth in the first home buyers, their ratio of owner occupier approvals has risen to 13.2 per cent from 12.7 per cent.

"That had been trending lower."

JP Morgan economist Tom Kennedy said a 5.8 per cent rise in loan approvals for the construction of new homes in January was encouraging.

"From a growth perspective that's what you want to see because you want construction activity picking up, which is what really matters for the overall GDP (gross domestic product) picture," he said.

"Construction activity will have a knock on effect for employment, not just in the construction sector -- it's broader than that, it's quite a large component of the Australian economy."

Mr Kennedy said the Reserve Bank of Australia would like to see construction activity pick up and purchases of established dwellings fall.

"That would take some heat away from house prices," he said.

Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) expects Australia’s housing market will flatten over the next few years, but it is not anticipating a collapse.

Speaking to The Australian Financial Review, PIMCO Asia-Pacific credit portfolio boss Rob Mead said Australia’s already expensive housing market compared to the rest of the world coupled with unemployment means investors should not expect a repeat of last year’s growth.

“Given those two factors, we’d say it’s hard to forecast similar gains in housing that we saw in 2013,” Mr Mead said from California, according to the newspaper.

PIMCO is the world’s largest bond investor and has over $US1.91 trillion ($A2.12tn) in assets under management, as of the end of 2013.

New Zealand's property market has cooled a little as restrictions on the level of low-equity home loans and rising mortgage rates have tempered demand, the NZ Reserve Bank says.

Annual house price inflation slowed to 8.8 per cent in January from a pace of 9.7 per cent in October, with the moderation influenced by its limits on the level of high loan-to-value ratio mortgages, the bank said.

The prospect of a higher official cash rate -- raised to 2.75 per cent today after three years at 2.5 per cent -- has fed into increased mortgage rates over the past six months, and that added to the moderation.

"Restrictions on high loan-to-value ratio mortgage lending are starting to ease pressure, and rising interest rates will have a further moderating influence," governor Graeme Wheeler said in a statement.

"However, the increase in net immigration flows will remain an offsetting influence."

Mr Wheeler imposed the speed limits on home lending on deposits of less than 20 per cent from October last year to try and cool a bubbling property market and the threat it posed the nation's financial stability in the event of a sharp correction.

In the monetary policy statement, the bank says much of the housing market's moderation appears to be related to the lending limits, and the early data is consistent with its expectation the restrictions will lower annual house price inflation by between 1 and 4 percentage points, and trim household credit growth by between 1 and 3 per centage points.

The bank said it's too early to determine how persistent the slowdown will be, and the level of high LVR lending may rise now commercial banks have worked through their pipeline of pre-approvals and adjusted to the new regime.

At the end of January, about 40 per cent of mortgages were on floating rates, down from 53 per cent a year earlier, and about 73 per cent were on floating or a fixed rate of less than one year.

"Over the past six months there has been an uptick in borrowers fixing for more than two years, but this still makes up a small proportion of the total," the bank said.

An investor day for disgruntled Westfield Retail Trust shareholders has been set for April 2, hosted by Westfield Group CFO Peter Allen and the executive team of the Australia and New Zealand operations which are to be spun off under a proposed merger.  

The invite has been extended to investors and analysts of WRT and Westfield Group, who will be given a presentation on the proposed Australia/NZ platform at the Westfield Miranda shopping centre in Sydney's south.

Investors are unsure what the key agenda of the April 2 investor day is at this stage but it should be a chance for a good debate over the pricing of the proposal and an attempt to assuage critics. Westfield chiefs Peter and Steven Lowy have held firm on the form of the restructure despite widespread conviction in the market the deal will have to be reworked to be more attractive to WRT shareholders.

Westfield announced in December that it was splitting its operations, a proposal which requires 75 per cent shareholder approval at a vote in May. Its Australian and New Zealand properties will be housed in a new vehicle, Scentre Group, headed by Allen. The lucrative US shopping malls, and properties in the UK and Europe, will be under the Westfield Corporation banner.

An explanatory memorandum on the merger and an independent expert’s report are set to be released late next month.

Morgan Stanley's Arena Investment Management is looking at the best way to deliver liquidity to investors in both its property and office funds, and will present its latest strategy at an investor day tomorrow.

Arena has been mulling a combined float of its office and property funds, though it could first run a selective sale of some assets to capitalise on huge demand for commercial sites in Australia.

A potential float could combine the Arena Office Fund, which has about $341m in assets under management and the Arena Property Fund, which manages about $220m in assets. Post asset sales, the property and office funds’ remaining $400m in assets under management would be rolled into a new vehicle to IPO, which would be a pure-play office fund.

While mulling its float options, Arena has been fielding unsolicited offers -- at well above book value -- for some of its assets, which has led it to consider running select asset sales ahead of an IPO.  Arena would likely look to sell 280 George Street, Sydney, and a $12m office site in Dandenong, as well as two industrial sites on long-term leases to Woolworths.

Arena is understood to be working through half a dozen offers for 280 George St, a 13-storey office building with two basement car park levels, which have come in at a premium of about 20 per cent to the site’s book value of about $46m.

Valuations for commercial assets appear to be on the rise and Arena’s targeted leasing strategy is also paying off, making it a good time to deliver investors liquidity through sales or an IPO – or both, if that proves the most lucrative option.  

The road to returns will have been a long one for Arena investors. Morgan Stanley took control of then-frozen Arena Office Fund in 2011 through a recapitalisation, and changed its name from Orchard Fund Management. Management has committed to delivering liquidity to investors within four years of the recapitalisation.

Arena’s office fund, which has six properties across Victoria, NSW and New Zealand, has an occupancy rate of 88 per cent. The Arena Property Fund, which has six assets in Victoria, NSW, South Australia, and Western Australia, boasts a 96 per cent occupancy rate.

(Reporting by Amanda.Saunders@businessspectator.com.au

Editing by Miranda.Maxwell@businessspectator.com.au )