Real estate fund manager Charter Hall is in the box seat to buy an interest in the Caltex service station real estate portfolio and may also be eager to snap up the stakes in United Petroleum’s service station real estate assets, according to sources.
The refiner and fuel retailer said it was exploring a potential real-estate partnership, which could include the sale of 15 to 25 per cent of its existing freehold site portfolio, with Caltex retaining between 25 per cent and 50 per cent stake.
Charter Hall (CHC) said it would not comment on the speculation.
However, the pair are believed to be in advanced talks, and sources say that the property group is in the front seat to acquire the assets.
It comes after Charter Hall announced, while delivering its results last week, that it was buying the fund manager Folkestone for $205 million.
The Australian’s DataRoom has also learned that like Caltex (CTX), United Petroleum is mulling a similar deal where it sells down a minority stake in its real estate interests.
Caltex said while delivering its results today that it was considering with “appropriately experienced partners” a potential strategic real estate partnership that leveraged its retail real estate assets and the partner’s ownership, management and development capabilities.
“These discussions include consideration of the sale of a material part (between 15 and 25 per cent) of the existing freehold site portfolio, currently estimated to have a total value of approximately $2 billion with Caltex retaining between 25 per cent and 50 per cent equity interest.”
Caltex said this would enable Caltex to benefit from market value and development gains.
The investment banks known to be close to Caltex are UBS, Goldman Sach (which has been hired to advise on its potential acquisition of Blackstone’s $1 billion chemicals business Ixom) and Grant Samuel.
Meanwhile, rival United Petroleum is also believed to be eager to sell a stake of about the same size in its real estate portfolio.
This comes after various false starts with initial public offering plans of the portfolio in the past.
This year, United Petroleum’s owners, Avi Silver and Eddie Hirsch appeared in court, claiming law firm Freehills was at fault for the failure of its $500m service station float, while the law firm said it was owed unpaid fees for work on the doomed effort.
However, the case was won by Herbert Smith Freehills.
United Petroleum controls over 8 per cent of the retail fuel distribution market and directly owns 330 petrol stations throughout the country along with a further 80 wholesale stations.
The Caltex branded convenience stores includes names like Star Mart and Woolworths and has at least 700 existing Caltex convenience sites, of which Woolworths has a recently signed wholesale food supply agreement.
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