Lendlease swoops on Werdiger towers in $300m Melbourne play

Melbourne’s wealthy Werdiger family has sold two city office blocks to Lendlease’s funds unit for about $300m as year-end deal-making picks up.

Juilliard Group sold 440 Collins St and 459 Little Collins St, Melbourne to the unlisted Lendlease Real Estate Partners 4.

Melbourne’s wealthy Werdiger family has sold two city office blocks to Lendlease’s funds unit for about $300m as year-end deal-making picks up.

The move came several years after the family reorganised its real estate holdings in the wake of property magnate Nathan Werdiger, the holocaust survivor who established the Julliard Corporation, passing away in 2015.

The Polish-born businessman and philanthropist left a fortune estimated at more than $730m and one of Melbourne’s largest commercial property holdings. He was a peer and associate of Frank Lowy, Marc Besen and John Gandel, and was one of Australia’s most remarkable migrant success stories, surviving the concentration camps of Buchenwald and Auschwitz before making a fortune in the rag trade and then in property.

Juilliard sold 440 Collins St and 459 Little Collins St to the unlisted Lendlease Real Estate Partners 4.

The deal was handled by Cushman & Wakefield‘s capital markets team. The buildings span about 30,000sq m and are located among some of Melbourne’s finest prime-grade office towers in a central location.

The latest transaction took Melbourne CBD office sales volume to about $3.4bn with more in the pipeline as buyers punt the Victorian capital will recover from the current slow return to offices. For Lendlease, the deal indicates that its plans to expand into funds are stepping up with the more opportunistic vehicle likely to reposition the buildings.

Lendlease Investment Management head of private equity Paul Snushall flagged an overhaul of the assets.

“These towers in the heart of Melbourne are a great addition to our portfolio and we look forward to capitalising on the core location as we bring Lendlease’s expertise and placemaking skills to the assets,” he said.

Lendlease’s funds arm is stepping up its acquisition strategy and is also targeting a famed Perth tower for about $350m, as the resources capital shows signs of improving.

The company’s funds unit is leading the pack to acquire the office skyscraper at 108 St Georges Terrace, which was developed in the 1980s by Alan Bond, in a play also backed by local house Realside.

Lendlease is taking a more active role in buying local assets.

Earlier this year, a Lendlease-run fund took a 49 per cent stake in the partnership led by funds manager Marquette Properties to buy 12 Creek St, the Blue Tower complex, in Brisbane from Dexus for about $420m.