Goodman Group targets hot markets with $500m of asset sales

Goodman Group is capitalising on hot industrial property markets in the US and Europe.

Goodman Group CEO Greg Goodman in Sydney.

Goodman Group is capitalising on hot industrial property markets in the US and Europe, with about $500 million of asset sales in train.

The group said sales had been most prominent in Australia and Britain, where it has sold $415m of property this financial year.

This included the Arlington Business Parks Partnership, jointly managed by Goodman and Legal & General Property, a portfolio of British business parks to Harbert Management Corporation and asset manager XLB for £137m ($261m).

Now, Blackstone’s European logistics company, Logicor, is close to acquiring Goodman’s Shine portfolio for about €300m ($423m). British journal Property Week reported the impending sale, which The Australian has learned comprises smaller assets out of the Goodman European Logistics Fund.

Industry sources said the price on the CBRE-brokered deal was good for Goodman, as the German assets were being sold with only short-term leases.

Blackstone said it was drawing on the backing of its Real Estate Partners International fund series and its European opportunity funds.

In the US, the group is focused on building out of its land bank, with $260m of projects under way in southern California. One of the group’s main logistics centres in the area, Rancho Cucamonga, comprising a two-building logistics distribution centre, is rumoured to have attracted Walt Disney as an anchor tenant, but this is yet to be confirmed.

US real estate investment adviser Bentall Kennedy last month quietly bought Goodman’s Oakland development for an institutional client. The pricing was not disclosed but Goodman had expected the asset to be valued on a sub-5 per cent cap rate.

Goodman’s US development activities are undertaken within its North American Partnership, split between the group, with 55 per cent, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, with 45 per cent.