Fife Capital snaps up industrial site in $36.5m play

The group is buying into one of the country’s hottest industrial precincts as the south Sydney area takes off.

Fife Capital’s Allan Fife. Picture: Tim Marsden

Property funds house Fife Capital has swooped on a south Sydney industrial site, that could be revamped as the precinct continues to attract investment, in a $36.5m play.

The manager snapped up a 16,326sq m land parcel at 60-66 Perry Street and 1 Kelly Street, Matraville from Orcades Investments, which had owned the property for more than 50 years.

Fife will look to capitalise on the site’s location near Port Botany and Foreshore Road in what is billed as the country’s tightest industrial market, where a series of modern warehouses are being planned.

Colliers agents Michael Crombie, Trent Gallagher and Sean Thomson and The Agency’s Michael Laing handled the sale.

The site is large for the south Sydney industrial precinct and is suited to redevelopment in future.

Values in Sydney’s infill industrial markets like Matraville have also jumped as buyers have chased tightly held areas rather than big-box developments in outer-ring industrial areas.

The warehouses on the site span 9838sq m, and there is a staggered weighted average lease expiry of 3.26 years by income, giving Fife the chance to lift rents or add value.

The property generated a gross passing income of $1.58m per annum, which was assessed below market levels, and it had an assessed net market income of $2.62m ($266 per sq m) per annum, providing Fife the chance to boost rents in future.

There is also a vacant 506sq m block of land at 1 Kelly Street ready to develop.