Cabot Properties forges deep into local market with $137m Matraville purchase
The transaction signals that global capital will pay up for local industrial assets.
US private equity real estate firm Cabot Properties has finalised a deal to buy a Sydney industrial complex, with the $137.6m play marking its entry into the gateway market.
The group, which has invested over $15bn in logistics real estate, has snapped up one of the first of the new style of multi-level industrial developments that have sprung up, and the high pricing on the deal is likely to spur more developers to build new facilities.
The firm, which is already invested in Melbourne, is among a series of offshore companies keen to build up a local presence in the industrial property market, with Japan’s Hankyu Hanshin Properties Corp just entering the market.
The Australian last year flagged that Cabot was poised to expand with the purchase of the institutional-grade multistorey industrial asset in the Sydney suburb of Matraville.
It was then under construction, one of the projects developers were racing to build in order to ride the rental boom in inner city areas.
The LaSalle Investment Management project, which was undertaken with local company Hale Capital Partners as development partner, is at 42-52 Raymond Avenue. The area has a shortage of warehouse space and limited developable land, making it attractive to investors looking for exposure to last mile logistics.
Cabot said it bought the newly built 19,819sq m logistics property as it was aligned with its strategy to invest in infill industrial real estate in top global logistics markets.
Among the first institutional grade multistorey logistics developments in Australia, the two-storey, ramp-up logistics facility has four units, one of which is leased to a local roofing material supplier.
“We are excited to expand Cabot’s presence in Australia,” said Sally Box Cabot, managing director of investments, Asia Pacific. “As an established product type across Asia but an emerging one in the Australian landscape, multistorey warehouses are attractive for many reasons – but among the most important is the increased density, which maximises land use to both enhance sustainability and increase storage capacity, ultimately supporting greater distribution capabilities,” she said.
This site sports good access to the Eastern Distributor, Southern Cross Drive, M5 Motorway and the new WestConnex M8 Motorway. The building is also near Sydney Airport and Port Botany.
Cabot in 2022 snapped up an industrial property in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Campbellfield for $41m, which it is now developing into a $130m logistics estate. That deal marked the fifth acquisition by Cabot Properties in Melbourne, adding to its developments in the western suburb of Truganina and the other sites in Melbourne’s southeast.
Colliers agents Gavin Bishop, Michael Crombie, Sean Thomson and Trent Gallagher handled the sale of the Matraville building.
In the South Sydney area, a number of projects are under way by local sector giants Goodman Group and Charter Hall, as well as by Asian warehousing company ESR, and more product is expected to be traded as they are completed.
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Originally published as Cabot Properties forges deep into local market with $137m Matraville purchase
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