Analysts welcome Ampol petrol station sale to Charter Hall and GIC

Charter Hall and partner GIC are buying more than 200 petrols stations as Ampol continues its overhaul of the former Caltex business.

Charter Hall’s acquisition of a $682m stake in the Ampol petrol stations with partner GIC has been well received by some analysts, who say the price paid is less than expected.

They also add that it reinforces the view that Charter Hall will not need to raise equity, given that the listed company will only invest $34m of its own capital for the transaction. Charter Hall’s capital partner, the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, is offering up the remainder.

The leases expire between 11 and 22 years and the properties will be held in an unlisted property trust.

Earlier, the expectation was that the 49 per cent interest in the portfolio that Charter Hall was in negotiations to buy would have been worth about $1bn.

However, the group only sold 80 per cent of its portfolio of 250 sites, with the remaining 47 to remain subject to review and vended into the trust over time.

The transaction values the entire portfolio of 203 petrol stations at $1.4bn with a yield of 5.5 per cent.

Charter Hall has been the frontrunner to buy the assets since 2018 when UBS was appointed to sell the portfolio, as earlier revealed by DataRoom.

Charter Hall managing director David Harrison said in a statement on Monday that both Ampol, which was previously called Caltex, and Charter Hall had been in “regular dialogue” with the Ampol team over the past two years.

Ampol will use the funds to pay down debt, with the property trust to remain without debt and the transaction finalised by the end of this year.