Kaufland coming to former Gold Coast Bunnings site
German supermarket powerhouse Kaufland has struck a fresh deal to expand into Queensland, with Bunnings landlord BWP Trust poised to sell it a site on the Gold Coast.
The play adds to a series of deals Kaufland has struck with the listed BWP in Melbourne. It last year bought an ex-Bunnings property in Dandenong South from BWP for $16.4 million.
The German supermarket giant was then linked to a series of sites in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs in June.
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Kaufland was reported to have struck option agreements over two other BWP-owned former Bunnings sites; one in Oakleigh South and the other in the northern suburb of Epping.
It was separately linked to a $16.5 million deal to buy 3.5ha of land in Chirnside Park from another vendor.
The Queensland deal, reported by The Courier Mail, was struck over a former Bunnings warehouse on a 3.28ha site at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast.
BWP announced at its results on Wednesday that contract terms were agreed on the site and an option exercised by a “unrelated third party” to acquire it for $19.7m. The listed company’s off-market deal-making with the German group prompted questions from analysts when it released its results.
BWP managing director Michael Wedgwood sys at the results the group had contracted sales in Dandenong, Altona, Epping and Oakleigh, and he was quizzed about how it had determined the sales prices.
He says the company had looked at alternatives for the sites and then decided to sell them and is “very comfortable” with the prices achieved. He says the prices came about via a “negotiation” and the group did not feel it needed to take the properties to an open-market process.
The purchases fit with Kaufland’s plans to expand beyond its Adelaide base. The company has been building up its property development unit as it seeks to shake up the Coles and Woolworths duopoly, and secondary players such as Aldi and IGA.
Its hypermarket model is a one-stop shop that requires sites of between 2ha and 2.5ha to accommodate its 10,000sqm to 20,000sqm buildings.
The German supermarket and general merchandiser stormed into Adelaide last year, buying the Le Cornu site in Adelaide’s Forestville for $25 million.
It is also seeking to buy a part of the city’s Richardson Reserve, with the supermarket group targeting 3.4ha of a Wynn Vale site for $13.8 million.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
