The billionaire Besen retail family has emerged as a backer of the $637.7 million float of the former Woolworths hardware store portfolio bought by wealthy investors and current and former UBS bankers David Di Pilla and Matthew Grounds.
Home Consortium – which owns the sites of Woolworths’ former Masters hardware stores – is slated to list on October 14 and has hopes of raising $300m at $3.35 per share.
The Besens secured their $2.29bn fortune through investments such as retailer Sussan and Melbourne’s Highpoint shopping centre, in which they sold a final stake to GPT Group during 2017 for $680m after initially offloading a half share in 2006 for $621m.
DataRoom can reveal that the family is one of the cornerstone investors for the Home Consortium float, along with other private wealthy investors who will reap a 6 per cent fully franked yield from the bulky goods landlord once it hits the ASX boards.
Home Consortium consists of 30 properties in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Perth worth $925m, and the prospectus for the listing will be released on September 23.
Retail investors – attracted to high-yielding opportunities amid a low interest rate environment – are expected to be targeted for the listing, which is expected to gain strong support due to its returns.
Working on the IPO are JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.
The freehold sites represent about 1.1 million square metres of land.
Home Consortium was created in 2016, when Mr Di Pilla, a former UBS banker, and his backers, who include departing UBS Australia head Mr Grounds, purchased a portfolio of properties from Woolworths that previously housed the failed Masters hardware stores.
The properties were re-leased with tenants including Aurrum Group, Spotlight Group and Chemist Warehouse.
At the time, the group outlaid $725 million for the portfolio of 40 Masters freehold outlets, 21 Masters development projects and 21 Masters leasehold stores and injected capital into the properties to lift their value.
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