Australian rich-lister Brett Blundy’s private investment company, BB Retail Capital, is targeting a $60 million bulky goods centre on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast as his funds management empire expands.
The group is buying the Sunshine Homemaker Centre on Maroochydore Road, most likely to anchor a new property syndicate for wealthy investors, industry sources said.
The deal is a rare marker in the bulky goods sector, which has been quiet this year after a flurry of sales in 2012 and 2013.
If the transaction goes ahead the centre could also be bolstered with tenants drawn from across BB Retail Capital’s network of bulky goods centres across Australia.
The centre is being sold by the unlisted Australian Unity Retail Property Trust, which is also selling its Wendouree Homemaker Centre in Ballarat, Victoria, to BBRC.
That centre had been valued at $27m by Australian Unity in a recent investment report.
The Victorian centre is earmarked for new retail fund — the BBRC Diversified Retail Fund, which holds about $110.9m worth of assets including three existing Blundy-controlled properties in regional NSW.
Australian Unity declined to comment on the sales, but said the fund was performing well due to its exposure to non-discretionary spending and was forecasting a distribution yield of 8-8.5 per cent.
The Sunshine Homemaker asset spans a lettable area of 27,127sq m and was valued at $57m in a recent Australian Unity investor report.
Australian Unity fund manager Mark Lumby said the $300m fund had been expanding and was looking to acquire neighbourhood shopping centres.
BBRC owns and manages an extensive portfolio of homemaker centres across Australia, as well as stakes in a number of retail brands including Bras N Things, Diva, Dusk and Adairs.
Mr Blundy, who is worth an estimated $945m, began buying homemaker centres in 2005, selling his stake in Sanity Entertainment Group, with which he had a long association, in 2009. Last year he moved the business’s headquarters to Singapore.