Wollongong’s Figtree Grove set to net $200m
Private equity giant Blackstone is readying to carve off the first element of its $3 billion retail property empire in Australia after winning the asset management arm of investment bank Moelis as the suitor for Figtree Grove in a deal worth more than $200 million.
The group put the subregional shopping centre in Wollongong on the block in September and selling to the investment bank, which is advising a Singaporean group, thought to be Singapore Press Holdings, could trigger further disposals.
Blackstone has also been quietly marketing Sydney’s Top Ryde City Shopping Centre with a number of deep-pocketed local and international bidders eyeing off the complex that went on the block for $700m in May.
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Moelis has been bulking up in retail property at a time when some institutions have taken a more cautious stance.
But it appears keen on the Wollongong centre, which is being marketed via Colliers International’s Lachlan MacGillivray, who declined to comment, as did the parties.
Blackstone bought the then Westfield Figtree as part of a $783 million package sold by the Scentre Group, which operates Westfield shopping centres in Australasia, in late 2015.
Now known as Figtree Grove, it is ranked 16th out of 100 Little Guns centres and is pitched as the highest-turnover subregional centre in Wollongong.
Blackstone has remixed Figtree Grove to focus on convenience shopping.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
