GPT comes for AMP’s mall fund as free-for-all truly kicks off

Mirvac has substantial interest in the unlisted AMP Capital Wholesale Office Fund. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

Here comes the free-for-all for AMP Capital’s prize funds, just over one month after the company sealed the deal to sell the $31bn real estate and local infrastructure asset funds management platform to property giant Dexus.

As The Australian first revealed on April 21, Mirvac has substantial interest in the unlisted AMP Capital Wholesale Office Fund – which has assets of some $8bn. Mirvac’s proposal now sits with the fund’s independent advisory committee.

Another fund, the AMP Capital Shopping Centre Fund – with some $3bn in assets – has also found interest from Dexus rival Vicinity Centres, it was reported in early May.

Now DataRoom can reveal it is not Vicinity alone that has expressed formal interest in the fund, which owns a series of large shopping centres. The $9bn GPT Group, another major diversified property player, has written to the fund with its own proposal.

READ MORE:How AMP missed its Macquarie moment | Investors lean toward AMP deal with Dexus | AMP funds platform sale faces challenge from Mirvac

GPT had in 2021 expressed interest, alongside Mirvac, for the office fund and been short-listed as candidates – the advisory committee recommended it remain with AMP. It has also been the beneficiary of the instability at AMP, with UniSuper transferring a $2.8bn mandate to GPT last month.

In a letter to ASCF investors, the fund’s independent board committee chairman Ming Long wrote that AMP Capital had recieved “two proposals from third parties … Vicinity Centres and the GPT Group”.

“Since then, the IBC and its advisers have completed an initial review of those proposals, both of which require further clarification. We have sent a questionnaire to both parties to clarify aspects of their proposals,” Long’s letter reads.

“We have also sent a questionnaire to AMP Capital seeking to further understand the intentions of Dexus in relation to its proposed management of ASCF, given Dexus’ proposed acquisition of AMP Capital’s domestic real estate and infrastructure equity business.”

Then there’s AMP Capital’s smaller Community Infrastructure Fund – which has some $5.8bn in assets in sectors from education and health to community housing.

Expect – as DataRoom has previously reported – interest from Plenary Group. The infrastructure investment manager has long held ambitions to take some of AMP’s most lucrative assets. In June 2021, it poached six asset management staff – and AMP Capital’s then global head of social infrastructure Julie-Anne Mizzi – to advance its claims.

So far, no success. AMP Capital’s independent board committee told suitors Plenary, Morrison & Co and Palisade Investment Partners it was not interested in further talks.

CommIF investors would also be advised to consider the legal mess Plenary has managed to get itself into in Canada, where its former pension fund backers – the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Pension Plan – are taking Plenary Canada to court alleging breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and misconduct. A court date has been set for early 2023.

The former backers are aggrieved that, despite understanding they were in a long-term relationship with Plenary, the company cut and run, selling its North American operations to Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec and cashing them out.

“The divestment will free-up capital to support Plenary’s opportunities in the fast growing Australian and Asian infrastructure markets,” Plenary’s global chairman John O’Rourke said in 2020, at the time of the sale.

WSIB and CAAT are particularly aggrieved, according to the documents, that Plenary had allegedly agreed not to participate in any public-private partnership transactions with their rivals – like CDPQ.