Charter Hall swoops on Campbelltown Mall in western Sydney

Charter Hall has snapped up Campbelltown Mall in western Sydney from Perth-based Perron Investments for $197m.

David Harrison, managing director of Charter Hall. Picture: James Croucher

The acquisitive Charter Hall Group has snapped up Campbelltown Mall in western Sydney from Perth-based Perron Investments for $197 million in the year’s largest individual subregional shopping centre purchase.

Charter Hall has set up a new wholesale property partnership for shopping centre assets and will co-invest with top super fund MTAA Super to buy the complex.

Perron Investments, led by billionaire Stan Perron, earlier this year fielded interest in Campbelltown Mall from unlisted specialist EG Funds Management and AMP Capital.

JLL’s Simon Rooney handled the latest sale, while the super fund was advised by JGS Property on the transaction that reflected a market capitalisation rate of 6 per cent.

Charter Hall will manage the partnership, to be known as the Charter Hall Prime Retail Fund and has committed $46m towards buying the centre.

Charter Hall head of retail Greg Chubb said MTAA Super was the group’s fifth institutional capital partner across its wider $2.3 billion retail wholesale funds management business.

Mr Chubb said the fund would seek to grow and would draw in other investors. It wanted it to eventually sit along the group’s main industrial and office property wholesale funds.

“Our ability to acquire high quality properties off market and our position as a leading property investment and funds management business continues to see us attract new capital partners,” he said.

Mr Chubb flagged further deals, saying the property was the seed asset for the new fund, which would focus on acquiring and actively managing larger convenience-based retail centres with strong growth potential.

Campbelltown Mall sits in one of Sydney’s largest southwestern suburban business districts and is a strongly performing convenience-based centre. It is anchored by Coles, Woolworths, Kmart, Target and Aldi, together with 10 mini majors and 84 specialty tenancies, with a 98 per cent occupancy and 4.7-year weighted average lease expiry.

The subregional shopping centre has a total gross lettable area of more than 42,200sq m and occupies a prominent 7.2ha site.

Charter Hall wholesale fund manager Ben Ellis said the property satisfied the wholesale retail investment strategy of acquiring larger convenience-based retail assets located in metropolitan areas with favourable demographics, which could also benefit from repositioning.

“As the outer metropolitan areas of our major cities become more urbanised, traditional subregional non-discretionary shopping centres are providing a renewed and strong growth investment opportunity,” Mr Ellis said.