The sale of MarketPlace Warner for $78.35m has confirmed the popularity of the smaller end of the retail sector

Less than three years after selling to a Swiss investment company a neighbourhood shopping centre has sold again this time to an Australian property group.

An aerial of MarketPlace Warner which sold for $78.35 million.

RETAIL may be experiencing strong headwinds but the neighbourhood shopping centre sector of the market continues to attract buyers.

SCA Property Group has confirmed the $78.35 million purchase of MarketPlace Warner north of Brisbane, in one of the largest neighbourhood shopping centre purchases in southeast Queensland.

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SCA chief executive Anthony Mellowes said shopping centres under $100 million — and especially smaller assets valued under $30 million — remained popular.

“For smaller shopping centres the market its still quite strong and buoyant,” he said.

“You get a good return from Woolworths or Coles, they’re fairly stable assets and high net worth individuals generally like them.

“But those bigger centres (valued over a $100 million) have more tenants and more exposure to apparel retailers where there have been quite a few voluntary administrations such as Jeanswest, Colette by Colette and Harris Scarfe.

“At the smaller end there have been a healthy number of transactions and there’s a lot buyers out there.”

At 255 Samsonvale Rd, Warner, and on a 6ha site, MarketPlace Warner has a Woolworths and Aldi, 35 plus other shops and a gross floor area of 11,488sq m. It was sold with a weighted average lease expiry of 9.8 years and realised a 5.75 per cent yield.

According to CoreLogic it last changed hands in 2017 for $77.6 million when it was bought by Swiss Pillar Investments AG and managed by AMP Capital in a deal struck by JLL’s Sam Hatcher and Jacob Swan.

MarketPlace Warner which was bought by SCA Property Group.

In JLL’s latest Australian Shopping Centre Investment Review and Outlook Mr Hatcher said there was a “deep pool” of capital looking for opportunities in 2020,

“A range of dynamic new capital sources are emerging to absorb these institutionally owned assets, driven by the opportunistic timing, attractive yields relative to core office/industrial and the longer term potential for redevelopment and re-positioning,” he said.

“A fragmentation of ownership will continue to occur in the retail sector as major owners become more selective towards the assets they retain in their portfolios and as new players build scale in the sector.”