Annerley Group acquires Adelaide medical facility after Cromwell deal fails

A Sydney property investor has bought a medical complex in Adelaide’s north, paying $42m for the site after a failed bid from fund manager Cromwell.

The GP Plus clinic at Elizabeth.

Sydney property investor Annerley Group has purchased a medical complex in Adelaide’s north, paying $42m to acquire the property after a contract with listed fund manager Cromwell failed to secure the backing of its investors.

Cromwell had been looking to raise $28m from investors to fund the acquisition of the GP Plus Health Care Centre on Playford Boulevard in Elizabeth, but a spokesman for the company confirmed the fundraising stalled due to “market conditions”.

ASIC records show Sydney investor Brandon Nguyen is the sole director and shareholder of Annerley Group, whose earlier property investments had been focused in and around Sydney.

The company acquired the property from Dexus’s unlisted healthcare property fund, which brought the property to market through JLL’s Simon Quinn and Ben Parkinson in October last year.

Dexus, which owns several other healthcare assets in Adelaide, including the Calvary Adelaide Hospital on Angas St and the newly developed Australian Bragg Centre on North Tce, paid $42m for the property in 2016.

The GP Plus complex was developed in 2010, and is leased to the South Australian government for six more years under an initial 20-year lease.

The campus-style facility has a net lettable area of 4603sq m and parking for 186 cars across the 11,720sq m site. It is operated by SA Health as part of a network of centres offering community focused primary care services including GP, dental and immunisation services, allied health and pathology collection services.

According to documents sent to investors after it struck a $42m deal to acquire the property, Cromwell had earmarked the property for a new single asset healthcare fund, targeting an average annual distribution of more than 7 per cent over an initial five-year period.

The planned acquisition formed part of the listed property group’s renewed focus on the Australian property market after it sold off its European operation earlier this year.

It is among a number of property groups stepping up its exposure to alternative asset classes such as healthcare facilities, which are typically underpinned by long leases to government and blue chip corporate tenants, and are expected to benefit from demographic changes such as Australia’s ageing population.

Originally published as Annerley Group acquires Adelaide medical facility after Cromwell deal fails