St Kilda Rd hits jackpot again with $95m tower sale
Melbourne’s hot St Kilda Road precinct is readying for its latest benchmark sale, with a Hong Kong group in the final stages of buying a tower from funds manager Vanguard Property Investments for about $95 million.
The leafy boulevard has already drawn a series of international groups, including Singapore-based Mapletree Investments and Rockworth Capital Partners, that have snapped up buildings.
Vanguard Property, acting for giant US private equity firm KKR, put the tower on the block in March, tapping CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield to sell it.
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CBRE’s Kiran Pillai, Mark Coster and Marc Giuffrida and Cushman & Wakefield’s Luke Etherington, Josh Cullen and Mark Hansen are marketing the tower but declined to comment.
The boulevard has been busy and property tycoon John Beville struck a lucrative deal in November to sell a nearby office block on St Kilda Road for $163 million to Chinese mainland investor Da Xie. That sale was struck on a fully leased yield of close to 5% and the latest sale could show a similar level.
Other sales have reflected high values, with Sydney-based Marprop buying the office block at 541 St Kilda Rd from fund manager Bayley Stuart for close to $65 million in December.
Other recent buyers on the boulevard were Abacus Property and Wing Tai Holdings, which last year snapped up VACC House for $95 million, and Tong Eng Group buying a $77 million tower from the Myer family.
Jeanswest owner Glorious Sun also bought 324 St Kilda Rd for $42 million, Mapletree buying No 417 for $145 million and Rockworth Capital buying No. 390.
Vendors of the 420 St Kilda Rd building are beneficiaries of the boom, having picked it up from Singapore-listed Chip Eng Seng for just $68.84 million in 2017. Vantage and KKR refurbished the tower, putting in a new lobby and cafe tenancy, upgraded passenger lifts, a refurbished lift lobby and bathroom program and a new end-of-trip facility.
The 10-storey building with a net lettable area of 10,452sqm sits on a 2286sqm site. It has three substantial street frontages with highly efficient and flexible floor plates with double basement carparking and prominent ground floor retail. Tenants include ANZ Bank and Business Centre, Technology One, APP Corporation.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
