G8 Education will acquire Sterling Early Education for $228 million, boosting its market share of childcare and early education in Australia to 28.5 per cent, increasing the number of its facilities to 388.

Varsity Lakes Queensland-based G8 is paying 5.79 times 2015 forecast earnings of $39.4m before interest and tax for Sterling’s 91 childcare and education centres,  according to a G8 ASX statement.

G8 says it will pay for the purchase with $215m from its cash reserves and issue 3 million G8 shares on March 31 to help fund the purchase. G8 shares, which are in a trading halt, have climbed 51 per cent this year. The stock closed at $4.76 on Friday.

Chris Scott, G8’s managing director, did not return calls seeking comment. No investment bank or law firm were named as advisors on the transaction in the ASX statement.

G8 will pay for the purchase of Sterling before September 30 providing contractual conditions are satisfied.

(Reporting by Brett.Cole@businessspectator.com.au)

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

Tony Pitt's 360 Capital Group last night confirmed that it had completed a $155 million raising as investors welcomed the chance to invest in a trust focused on suburban office buildings.

Investment bankers Moelis and CIMB drew stronger-than-expected interest from institutions and Morgans provided strong retail bidding for the fund, as $125m was raised.

In line with 360 Capital's co-investment philosophy, it committed $30m to the raising as part of its long-term strategy.

Proceeds from the raising are to go to settling two acquisitions by the fund -- 154 Melbourne Street, South Brisbane, for $73.5m, and 438-517 Kingsford Smith Drive, Brisbane, for $62m -- and to help restructure of the currently unlisted fund.

The fund will have gross assets of $239m and will be a major part of 360 Capital's expansion plans alongside the separately listed 360 Capital Industrial Fund, which yesterday unveiled strong revaluations.

The 360 Capital office fund will start with just four assets in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane, but could find rich pickings in its target markets of A-grade suburban and B-grade city office buildings worth between $30m and $100m.

Mr Pitt said "support from existing and new institutional and retail clients was strong" as they recognised the fund's attractive investment metrics and the potential upside from the residential opportunity on the fund's tower in the Sydney suburb of Burwood.

Australand Property Group has lifted its full-year 2014 operating earnings guidance due to positive market conditions in the residential property sector.

Investors sent Australand shares 1.2 per cent higher to $4.22 at 11.17am (AEDT), against a benchmark index fall of 0.4 per cent.

In a statement, Australand said it expects operating earnings per security to be 17 per cent to 20 per cent higher in 2014 than 2013.

The property group also upgraded its distribution guidance to 25.5 cents per security, a 19 per cent lift on 2013, and higher than its February forecast of 22 cents per security.

Australand noted strong demand and price growth in its residential division, saying the 2014 residential earnings contribution is set to be higher than earlier forecast.

Sales activity has been particularly encouraging in NSW, Australand said.

Billionaire Harry Triguboff has been approached by large Chinese building groups interested in buying his prolific apartment developer Meriton, as the wave of Chinese interest in Australian property deepens.

Mr Triguboff will be in Guang­zhou next week and will meet with Chinese builders there. He declined to name the companies.

“(The builders) are bound to want Meriton,” Mr Triguboff told The Australian. “We have the stock, we have the land and the know-how.”

“Its not simple to be a builder in a foreign country.”

However, Mr Triguboff said he was not that interested in selling the profitable company.

“As long as I am useful, I would like to be there,” he said.

He also noted that his 24-year-old grandson Daniel was working in the business.

Mr Triguboff said Meriton was worth about $6.25 billion. The company produces about 2000 apartments a year and earns about $350 million annually in rents from apartments that have been kept as investments.

Meriton plans to start work on 3000 units over the next year, including 600 at Southport on the Gold Coast.

“We have bought a lot (of sites), we need to develop fast,” Mr Triguboff said.

Meriton has looked at expanding into Melbourne, with Mr Triguboff saying the site it had been eyeing was snapped up by another developer.

“I will have to think if it’s worthwhile (developing in Melbourne). The profits are not as much as in Sydney,’’ he said.

Mr Triguboff said he was still bullish on the apartment market and on buying sites, saying he did not expect an oversupply on the back of heavy investment by Asian developers.

“It’s one thing to buy the land, and it’s another to build,” he said.

The wave of Chinese developers and apartment buyers provided momentum to the market, he said.

“Take them away and if we have to depend on our buyers and our bureaucrats, then our building industry will grind to a halt,” he said, estimating unit ­prices would drop 10-15 per cent in a number of areas if Chinese investment halted.

Mr Triguboff, who was born in the Chinese city of Dalian, said rents would rise if Chinese developers withdrew, as stock levels would drop.

Chinese businesses and unit buyers were long-term investors who were unlikely to retreat from the Australian real estate market in the way Japanese and US investors had in the past. “The Chinese are conservative, they will be here forever if we let them,” Mr Triguboff said.

Mr Triguboff’s comments came after the parliamentary inquiry into foreign investment in residential real estate released its terms of reference.

The inquiry, headed by Liberal MP Kelly O’Dwyer, will ­investigate whether foreign investment is directly increasing the supply of new housing and bringing benefits to the local building industry and its suppliers; and how Australia’s foreign investment framework compares with international experience. The committee has denied targeting Chinese investment.

Mr Triguboff also called on state and federal governments to reassess the first-home owners grants to enable first-time buyers back into the housing market.

“Although the NSW government doubled the grant amount in 2012, it really needed to look at lifting the threshold from $650,000 to at least $850,000, so first-home buyers can compete with their grants in hand.”

Mr Triguboff noted that the Queensland apartment market had finally begun to improve, with better sales over the past month. Queensland was seeing the start of Chinese buyers, he said, with the universities in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast becoming a drawcard to Chinese students, similar to the patterns in Melbourne and Sydney.

In 1984 Robin Murphy sold his bridge building business, Construct Pty Ltd, to a Danish concern called Christiani and Neilson for $1 million, back when a million was a million. A couple of years before that, my wife and I bought our first house for $24,900; that place is now worth 50 times what we paid, and yes, we should have kept it.

Three years later Robin bought his business back for $2.

Now, compare this with Kerry Packer’s famous Alan Bond deal nearly a decade later, which led KP to later remark: “You only get one Alan Bond in your life and I’ve had mine.”

Packer sold Channel 9 for $1 billion and bought it back three years later for $250 million, a discount of 75 per cent. Robin Murphy’s discount after four years was, oh… just a lazy 99.998 per cent.

It came about because the Danish firm went broke and the banks installed an American McKinsey consultant, who rang Robin one day to tell him: “We’re closing all third world operations -- that includes Australia.”

So Robin Murphy, down in third world Australia, got it back for two bucks and set about rebuilding it. Now it’s turning over $250 million a year.

In addition to that the Murphy family now owns a modular building operation called Force 10 that turns over $28 million, and properties that produce about $5 million a year in rent.

All things considered, and taken on the whole, it’s a pretty happy story you’d have to say. But like all construction businesses, the Murphys have had their ups and downs.

A few years ago the business was worth nothing at all, but Robin Murphy even managed to turn that into a happy ending: he transferred 60 per cent of the company to his three sons -- 20 per cent each -- without crystallising any capital gains tax because it had zero value. Every cloud has a silver lining.

As a result of that transaction, the Canstruct and Force 10 group is now a true family business. 

Robin is now in his mid-70s, semi-retired, and his three sons run the business. Rory Murphy is CEO of the group, and reporting to him are his brothers Adrian, general manager of Force 10, and other brother Dan, general manager of Canstruct Pty Ltd, as it’s now called (after Christiani and Neilson -- Robin wasn’t able to change the name back to Construct because someone snaffled the business name).

Dan, Rory, Adrian and Robin Murphy

And the early days of this business had its ups and downs as well.

Robin graduated in 1961 as an engineer and went to work in Papua New Guinea for the Australian administration of what was then a colony.

A few years passed. He was married in early 1964 and had his first child, Jane, later that year. This obviously made him think he was capable of doing anything, so, with total assets of one Volkswagen Beetle, he bid on a contract to build three bridges deep in the jungles of PNG.

The bridges were to cross wild rivers on the Highlands Highway in the north of PNG, west of Lae – truly in the middle of nowhere in other words. He had no cranes and employed two expats and 100 natives, and he built the bridges. They’re still standing 50 years later.

Robin and Margaret stayed in PNG for five years, living in grass huts with dirt floors in remote villages -- with two little kids. When child number three, Rory, was born in 1968 (Adrian had been born in 1966) Margaret put her foot down: it was time to go back to Australia, and civilisation.

Robin got a job with John Holland in Tasmania and worked for them for two years, building mine shafts and the Gunns woodchip mill. Then once again he got the entrepreneurial itch and tendered on his own to build a wharf in Launceston, which he won against Readymix Concrete.

That’s when he started Construct Pty Ltd and looked for jobs where he’d be bidding against lazy monopolies, so he could undercut them. He was very successful.

In 1979 Margaret was pregnant with their fifth child (Dan had been born in 1971) and once again the wifely foot went down: it was time to go back to Brisbane to be near her family.

And that’s when the fateful offer came from Christiani and Neilson to buy the business. He asked for $1.5 million and got $1 million, and worked for the Danes in Brisbane for four years as managing director of the company, before his employer went broke and sold the business back to him.

Dan Murphy (his son, not the liquor merchant) started working with him in 1988 and Adrian joined three years later. Rory was a lawyer with a big firm in Melbourne. 

The three Murphys, later joined by Rory, carved out a solid business doing remote engineering projects in Australia and around the region, especially in PNG until in 2003 there was an opportunity to buy the modular building operation called Force 10 (named that because the buildings are designed withstand cyclones -- a natural extension of the remote engineering work they were doing.

There’s a bit of a tale about this as well. Force 10 had been owned by the Beazley family, New Zealand’s largest home builders, but in 2000 they had a misunderstanding with the Australian Tax Office over some tropical subsidiary companies, and the business went into voluntary administration. The administrator sold it to a dog food manufacturer who stuffed it up, and the company went into liquidation; the Murphys bought it from the liquidator in 2003 for $400,000.

So maybe Robin Murphy had two Alan Bonds, not one.

Anyway, this is now a significant Queensland manufacturing and construction business, with 75 per cent of its products exported around the world. The next challenge is to complete the succession to the second generation.

Robin and Margaret have decided that their 40 per cent of the business will pass equally to the three boys, and the two girls, Jane and Kelly, neither of whom are full-time in the business (Jane is a part-time PR person) will inherit property to equal value.

It’s clear talking to them that the family love working together: Robin said that he figured out the other day that his kids have been working with him for a total of 66 years and they have never had a serious argument.

I asked Jane whether she and Kelly were disappointed they wouldn’t inherit any ownership of the business. “Not at all”, she replied. “The boys have worked hard, for below market rates, and deserve it. We don’t begrudge that at all.”

Having interviewed plenty of family business over the past couple of years, I can assure you this is all quite unusual. It’s clear that the foundation of this business is the respect and love they all have for Robin Murphy, and that looks strong enough to last a few more generations.

Unless, of course, another Alan Bond comes along.

To read this month's Family Business Magazine for free click here.

A legal battle between developer Lend Lease and the New South Wales government’s Barangaroo Delivery Authority threatens to delay development at the harbourside location in Sydney, according to The Australian Financial Review.

The dispute between the two parties is believed to centre on the procedure for valuing commercial towers at the Barangaroo development site.

The AFR reported that settlement talks remained a long way from resolving the disagreement, placing a cloud over the development of the third office tower at the site.

However, Crown Resorts’ proposed hotel in Barangaroo is likely to be unaffected by the legal wrangle.

Housing affordability fell slightly in the December quarter as the boost from earlier interest rate cuts tapered off, the Housing Industry Association says.

The HIA-Commonwealth Bank Housing Affordability Index fell by 0.5 per cent in the December 2013 quarter, but remained 8.4 per cent higher than in the December 2012 quarter.

HIA chief economist Harley Dale said borrowing costs are at record lows but the effect of the most recent rate cut in August had "largely washed through the system" in the December quarter.

"In 2014 we are likely to see further gains in residential property prices, but in an environment of subdued household earnings growth and steady interest rates," Mr Dale said.

"The strong cyclical improvement to affordability for existing participants in the home ownership market has therefore run its course."

Yesterday, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens noted "abundant signs of confidence" in the housing market.

The GPT Group has bought a 50 per cent interest in Northland Shopping Centre in Melbourne for $496 million in an off-market process.

The GPT Wholesale Shopping Centre Fund bought the stake from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. It is co-owned by CFS Retail Property Trust Group.

GPT said the transaction represents an initial yield of 6.1 per cent and a core capitalisation rate of 5.8 per cent and is due to settle on April 30.

GPT chief executive officer Michael Cameron said the deal enhanced the already high quality of the group's funds management platform.

One of Australia’s oldest property firms has decided to take a leap into virtual currencies, with Forsyth Real Estate now accepting bitcoins.

The 115 year old real estate agency has forged a partnership with Bitcoin payments provider CoinJar in a bid to cater to the influx of international investors and expats entering the Sydney property market.

According to Forsyth, the addition of Bitcoin payments is a logical extension of how it currently engages with its customers at a transactional level.

The agency currently receives property deposits in the form of personal cheques, bank cheques, direct deposit (electronic funds transfer) or a telegraphic transfer.  He CoinJar partnership will now allow customers to select Bitcoin as a payment.

James Snodgrass, Forsyth Managing Director, says the agency is a strong supporters of the Bitcoin economy as it allows overseas transactions with less fees and exchange rate fluctuations. 

The Bitcoin pathway isn’t solely open for those interested in buying a property, vendors can also pay for their property advertising with Bitcoin. 

While Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are still viewed with some suspicion, Mr Snodgrass said that Forsyth had carried out a thorough assessment of the risks involved.

“Prior to launching, we had discussions with our financial division who outlined the risks and opportunities of Bitcoin and we were happy with our findings,” Mr Snodgrass said.

Transactions made in Bitcoins still include Goods and Services Tax (GST).  The Bitcoin exchange is calculated in real-time and reconciled by CoinJar so Forsyth receives the exact amount in AUD charges.

The $500 million aged care provider Japara is powering towards an April float as it considers dropping its back-end bookbuild in favour of cornerstoning a raising of up to $450m after a rush of demand.

Adviser Macquarie Group has been inundated with calls from about 20 institutional investors chasing allocations.

A prospectus was set to be lodged Monday but Macquarie and the Japara executive will today decide whether to cornerstone the raising, which would instead see them issue pathfinders to institutions over the weekend.

Fund managers are understood to have been lobbying Japara’s directors – as well as Macquarie -- to try to get in on the raising. The huge demand for cornerstone stakes comes on the back of a successful pre-marketing Macquarie analyst roadshow across the east coast last week. And the fact that the Japara directors are well known to many fund managers has also helped.

The institutional appetite for Japara’s raising amid the collapse of hotelier Mantra Group’s $500m IPO this week shows investors are still open to backing the IPO pipeline but are being much more selective than during the pre-Christmas feeding frenzy.

Japara is in the sweet spot of “aged care” and is considered to have big growth potential. Japara, which has a valuation of about $500m before $150m in debt and offer costs, would be the first listed pure-play aged care offering. Listing is slated for 28 April.

Japara is targeting a raising of $350m and $450m, depending on the size of the primary selldown by existing Japara shareholders. Post-float Japara will have $150m issued in new equity, and the remainder will be sell-down equity.

Japara shareholders will be asked to vote on a company restructure next month that would merge the operating company Japara Holdings with Japara property trust, which it manages.

Under the restructure, management would partially sell down their stakes but emerge with substantial holdings in the merged entity – Japara Healthcare.

It is understood the four existing shareholders in the operating company are leaving at least $80m in the company, representing 40 per cent of the value of their holdings. Given the owners will want to underpin the value of their retained stakes it is understood they are being pretty reasonable on price.

Major shareholders in Japara Holdings include managing director Andrew Sudholz and director Julius Colman, who each had a 31.24 per cent stake at June 30, according to ASIC. However, their stakes will be diluted through the restructure and new equity raised.

Japara, which operates 25 aged-care sites and five retirement homes in Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania, is being pitched as a private hospital-style business with a growing asset base and secure and rising government revenue streams. It also has a low regulatory risk profile.

Other key selling points include the uncapped demand for health and aged-care services and a booming ageing population.

Japara Healthcare’s board will be headed by Fairfax director Linda Nicholls, who used to chair Healthscope and Australia Post. Other members include AustralianSuper director Tim Poole, Macquarie Atlas Roads director Richard England and former APN Property Group chief executive David Blight.

In the 1980s, Australians were concerned about Japanese investment entering the country, and in particular real estate in Queensland, which culminated in the “Heart of the Nation” group on the Gold Coast that opposed the “Japanisation” of Australia.

The Japanese government’s ill-conceived ideas, such as the “Silver Columbus 1992” which proposed to locate retirement villages in Australia, turned public opinion against Japanese investment. Newspapers like The Age accused Japanese investors of taking advantage of the weak dollar to buy up property and, in the process, dashing the hopes of aspiring Australian buyers.
 
Japan's embassy found that 75 per cent of respondents surveyed wanted no further increase in Japanese investment. In Queensland, that figure reached as high as 86 per cent. However, the same survey also found 61 per cent wanted more trade with Japan and 70 per cent wanted more tourists from the country, according to Chris Pokarier’s article, “The controversy over Japanese investment in Australia, 1987-1991: Context Lesson”.

In the 1987 election, Treasurer Paul Keating announced a new policy that significantly restricted the purchase of established houses by foreign buyers who were not permanent residents. Almost three decades later, Australia is having the same argument about Chinese investment, and the current debate is strikingly similar to the argument we had back in the 1980s. It seems we have not learnt much from history.

The Japanese didn’t colonise Queensland. Golf courses bought at the height of the speculative property bubble for $200 million were sold for a fraction of the original price tag at a leaner time. The issue of Japanese investment is hardly raised now despite the fact that Japan is still one of the largest investors in the country.

Displaying a marked similarity to the Australian attitude towards Japanese investment in the 1980s, a 2013 Lowy Institute poll indicated a majority of Australians (57 per cent) think the government is allowing too much Chinese investment in this country. At the same time, 76 per cent of those surveyed thought China was the most important economy to Australia.

The attitude of Australians to foreign investment has not changed much over the last 30 years. It seems people are happy to sell commodities and host tourists, but do not like foreign investment in mining and real estate.

But the uncomfortable truth for resources nationalists is that Australia is not able to develop its mining industry without foreign capital. Since the earliest days of the Australian mining industry, the country has been relying on offshore funding.

Former BHP chief executive Brian Loton says Japanese demand and capital was crucial for the development of the mining major. In fact, the company invited its Japanese customers to invest in projects like the Escondida copper mine in Chile and Hamersley in the Pilbara.

Foreign investment in the property sector is much more controversial and is inevitably linked with the issue of housing affordability, which is becoming a galvanising issue for the community. However, much of the debate is based on hyperbole, hearsay, and anecdote.

Figures from the Foreign Investment Review Board are sketchy at best. The oft-cited $5.9 billion investment in real estate from Chinese investors should be treated with caution. All bidders for the same property need to submit applications to the board, so there can be a lot of double, or even triple, counting. At the same time, there is no effective mechanism in place to monitor people who don’t even bother to submit applications.

What we need are accurate figures and an effective monitoring mechanism to ensure the integrity of the system. We can never put the question of whether foreigners are driving up the price to rest if we have questionable data. The issue is complicated by different state legislation on real estate purchases, and Queensland is the only state that requires buyers to disclose their nationalities.

The government needs to have better data on foreign investment in the housing sector in order to have a more rational discussion of the issue. Otherwise we can only expect people to rely on anecdotal evidence to reinforce their bias.

Though the current legislation requires temporary residents to sell their properties when visas expire, there is no effective mechanism to enforce that. If the government wants to maintain the integrity of the system, FIRB must be given more resources to monitor it. Its principal function to date has been that of an adviser rather than a feared regulator.

The most important lesson from the 1980s boom in Japanese investment is that the fear of a Japanese takeover of Queensland was misplaced. In fact, quite a few Australians benefited from overzealous Japanese investors who were happy to pay above market prices for properties.

Though we need to be vigilant of foreign speculative influence in the housing sector, it is equally important to look back in history to remind us that fearful forecasts of foreign takeovers never really eventuate.

Fund managers expect a full takeover bid to be launched in weeks, with Stockland tipped to pair up with another group willing to take on the office buildings that it is not expected to hold.

Australand’s key attraction lies in masterplanned communities, a business which fits well with Stockland chief executive Mark Steinert’s plans to build out more of its land bank. The industrial business is also being sought for its capacity to develop new product at a time when values in the sector are rising strongly.

Speculation is also mounting that Stockland might look to offload the office portfolio to GPT, which recently set up a suburban office fund. Investa, which has a long relationship with Stockland, and acquisitive property fund manager Charter Hall are also likely to contest buildings in any sale portfolio.

But a roadblock to such a deal could be the perception that Australand’s office portfolio, which is made up of mainly smaller buildings in suburban locales, is of lower quality than other assets on the market.

Selling office towers is not the only path Stockland could take. The group might look to spin off its residential assets into a new fund along with some Australand projects. This kind of development fund - not seen since before the GFC - could be backed by the likes of institutional heavyweight AustralianSuper.

For many in the market, however, the key focus is the price that Stockland could end up paying to get control of its target.

One fund manager told The Australian that Stockland should not do the deal “at any price”.

Meanwhile, another senior fund manager said Stockland was unlikely to pay more than $4.40 a share for Australand, adding that they believed Australand’s closing price yesterday of $4.25 was already inflated.

Australand’s share price stood at $3.89 ahead of Stockland emerging as a major shareholder.

It is understood that a recent survey of investors in Westfield Retail Trust conducted by leading industry brokerage CLSA found investor discontent against the proposal had grown considerably.

Two fund managers who participated in the survey said the survey clearly showed that more than 25 per cent of investors in WRT were planning to vote against the proposal.

Under the proposal, the group’s Australian and New Zealand shopping centre businesses will be merged into Westfield Retail Trust to form a new listed company called Scentre Group.

Westfield, in which the Lowy family will keep an 8 per cent stake, will retain its US, British and European interests and focus on developments and investments in these higher growth areas.

The transaction needs 75 per cent approval from Westfield Retail Trust investors to pass.

The highly regarded analysts at CLSA have previously predicted that about 15 per cent of investors are not in favour of the deal, but a fresh survey taken this week, the details of which were released to clients on Friday evening, found that investor discontent against the proposal was growing.

CLSA declined to comment on the survey.

A fund manager who attended the meeting but declined to be named said if the survey were any indication of how investors would vote on the day, then the proposal would not be passed.

Another fund manager told The Australian that they were not surprised and believed much of the discontent was coming from usually passive superannuation funds that bought into the stock when it was formed in 2010 in a previous Westfield restructure.

The creation of WRT also faced investor discontent, but the proposal passed.

The fund manager added that the proposal could succeed if proxy advisers deemed it as being not fair but still in the best interests of shareholders.

It is understood that at least two major proxy advisory firms are yet to assess the proposal, waiting until the full explanatory memorandum is released at the end of April.

Next week, Westfield’s top Australian executives will again meet with local investors in an attempt to assuage concerns about the restructure.

The meeting will be hosted by incoming Scentre chief executive and long-time Westfield heavyweight Peter Allen and his management team.

A privately owned internet-based property advice business chaired by former REA Group head Simon Baker has flagged plans to list as it seeks to tap investors for $6 million. Real Estate Investar Group, which provides residential investment property information, data ser­vices and investment tools, has outlined float ambitions as it experiences a growth spurt on the back of the booming housing market.

“(Real Estate Investar Group) hopes to list on the ASX in the future when it is of sufficient scale and market conditions are favourable for ASX listing,” the group’s prospectus said, without putting a timeframe on the move.

The business grew out of a property investment magazine launched in 2006.

It changed tack to offer online search, analysis and property tracking a couple of years later and now has more than 2500 paying subscribers and a database of more than 95,000 active and potential property investors. The group has also set up a private data­base that contains more than $9 billion of residential property analysis and in-depth portfolio information.

The raising, for 20 million shares at 30c per share, would value the business at $30.1m if fully subscribed. While the business is still making losses — with almost $3.7m racked up so far — its growth profile was compared with Asia-based online property advertising service iProperty and online casual jobs service Freelancer in the raising document.

The group has poured funds into product and market development for several years and last financial year revenues hit $3.8m. Mr Baker said in a letter to investors that the business had demonstrated compound annual revenue growth of 54 per cent since the 2007 financial year, including a 47 per cent revenue jump last financial year.

The group has recruited former Volante Group chief executive Ian Penman as it seeks to launch new products and strike up more industry partnerships. Mr Penman had 18 years at IBM and spent 15 years as the chief executive of Compaq Computer Corporation.

The group already works with Fairfax Media’s APM and Domain.com.au divisions and New Zealand-based property data service CoreLogic.

It also flagged further international expansion beyond Australia and New Zealand.

Mr Baker said funds put into developing new products should attract more customers and make the service more compelling for existing subscribers. “This should result in a profitable business capable of international geographic expansion,” he said.

Signs of stress are emerging in the property market as the top end of the market begins to falter, according to The Australian Financial Review.

Top-end buyers’ agent David Morrell said that activity was waning for homes priced above $3 million, though the more affordable area of the market remains strong.

“There is caution and the red flags have gone up; the smarter-money set is not getting carried away,” he told the AFR. “The talk isn’t interest rates at the top end, it’s the stockmarket, and people are also paying a lot of attention to Russia. While it doesn’t directly affect our market, it makes people uncertain.”

Clearance rates in Sydney remained high on the weekend, while clearance rates in Melbourne dipped amid much higher volumes ahead of Easter.

Little Group has replaced three members of the Real Estate Corp (RNC) board after taking a controlling share in the company last week.

Paul Little, who owns and controls property company Little Group with his wife Jane Hansen, will sit on the board along with Peter Halstead and Ian Hanley. They replace outgoing board members Nathan Cher, Jane Tongs and Samuel Herszberg.

Clause 4.4 of the Bid Implementation Agreement allows Little Group to nominate new board members.

Little Group took control of 85 per cent of RNC on March 25, paying shareholders for 37c per share.

Real Estate Corp owns and operates RUN Property, Agentplus and Maintenance Matcher.

A jump in sales of detached houses drove an overall lift in new home sales in February, despite a fall in the number of units sold, according to a private survey.

The Housing Industry Association found detached house sales rose by 6.9 per cent in the month, while sales of multi-units fell by 6.8 per cent.

Total seasonally adjusted new home sales increased by 4.6 per cent in February, HIA found.

HIA chief economist Harley Dale said sales and building approvals for detached houses are signalling faster momentum ahead.

Westfield Group’s formidable chairman, Frank Lowy, may be preparing the ground for a change in the terms of the shopping mall owner’s proposed $70 billion restructure because of a backlash from investors.

Westfield is hosting institutions at a briefing tomorrow at its Miranda shopping centre in Sydney’s south where opposition to the deal is expected to be heard.

The briefing will be lead by veteran Westfield executive Peter Allen, who is to head a new listed company called Scentre Group, which will be created by merging the group’s Australian and New Zealand shopping centre businesses with Westfield Retail Trust. The transaction needs 75 per cent approval from Westfield Retail Trust investors.

A survey by top-tier brokerage CLSA, revealed over the weekend by The Weekend Australian, shows 58 per cent of investors surveyed in Westfield Retail Trust are planning to vote against the deal, which many ­regard as too favourable to Westfield.

“This is likely understated, as most investors answered anonymously,” analyst John Kim said in the note to clients. Now market sources are indicating that there may be some room for Westfield Retail to renegotiate either the terms of the proposal or at least to refashion it as more saleable.

The Lowy family has been resolute in sticking to the original proposal, which it unveiled to the market last December, that ­ascribed value of $1.8bn to the shopping centre giant’s Austral­asian management platform.

Well-placed sources said not to expect a change in the restructure’s terms until perhaps even a week ahead of the proposal up for a vote in May as the octogenarian billionaire “plays chicken” with investors. Westfield declined to comment yesterday.

Mr Kim said the chief concern for investors was the high price for Westfield Group’s management business, which will be sold to Scentre under the deal.

“We have further conviction Westfield Group will need to sweeten the merger ratio in Westfield Retail Trust’s favour in order to obtain 75 per cent shareholder approval.”

However, there is still some belief in the market that the independent expert’s report to be released with the explanatory memorandum on the deal will help to sway investors and proxy advisory houses. These groups are expected to play a crucial role as many pension funds direct their investment managers to ­follow instructions from these ­advisers.

Observers have tipped that the independent expert will declare the deal in the best interest of shareholders but not necessarily fair and reasonable. UniSuper, a significant investor in Westfield Retail with 7.27 per cent, is thought to be holding out for a better deal, along with at least five heavyweight local investment houses that have confirmed their positions with The Australian.

UniSuper head of property Kent Robbins declined to comment, but in an interview in January he described the proposal as “a bridge too far”.

“The implied price of that management platform is just off the scale in our view,’’ he said at the time. Still, concerns remain over what some in the market have described as a “jawbone” exercise by Westfield.

Westfield Retail closed up 1c at $2.98. Westfield Group closed down 3c to $10.25.