Chicago-based property giant Commonwealth REIT, headed by billionaire businessman Sam Zell, will put its entire Australian portfolio, which is worth about $300 million, on the market.
The company owns eight industrial properties in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, as well as an office building at 320 Pitt Street in Sydney.
Commonwealth is understood to have approached a number of agents and asked for submissions of interest to sell all its local properties.
The trust attempted to sell the industrial assets two years ago, then worth $124m, through Jones Lang LaSalle, as part of a planned move into office towers. But it wasn’t able to seal the deal with buyers wary about the B-grade stock, and it retained the 115,000sq m portfolio.
At the time, the trust had said it was interested in creating an Australian portfolio of up to $US1 billion.
Mr Zell was named chairman of the group earlier this year after a protracted battle by investor Corvax Management to install new trustees, and the trust will tomorrow change its name to Equity Commonwealth.
Mr Zell is also chairman of Equity Residential, the largest listed apartment landlord in the US, as well as Equity LifeStyle Properties, which owns manufactured-home communities. He sold his Equity Office Properties Trust to Blackstone Group in February 2007 for $US39bn.
Commonwealth REIT declined to comment when it was contacted by The Australian yesterday.