Charter Hall Long WALE REIT spends $206 million
Charter Hall Long WALE REIT will seek to raise $180 million to partially fund several new property acquisitions worth $206 million, the listed fund announced on Wednesday.
The Long WALE REIT, which floated in late 2016, has acquired two new office buildings and a 50 per cent stake in an industrial complex.
As foreshadowed by The Australian Financial Review, Charter Hall was the buyer of Telstra’s Canberra Head Office at 16-18 Mort Street, which it acquired for $108.5 million on a net passing yield of 6.9 per cent.
The REIT, which focuses on investing in assets with long lease expiries, also bought an office building at Sydney Olympic Park for $46.2 million with a yield of 5.4 per cent.
The building’s anchor tenant is a subsidiary of French multinational company Thales, which builds electronics for the defence and aerospace sector. The property has a WALE of 11.9 years.
The asset is being sold by the Charter Hall Direct Sydney Olympic Park Fund with settlement conditional on a shareholder vote.
Also part of its latest round of acquisitions is a 50 per cent stake in a six-hectare site used by Brisbane City Council as a bus terminal at Eagle Farm in Queensland, which it bought for $51.3 million on a yield of 5 per cent.
Facilities include parking for 200 buses and 250 cars, refuelling and maintenance facilities and administrative buildings.
To fund its latest shopping spree, the REIT will issue shares at $4.74 each, representing a 3.9 per cent discount to the last close of $4.93 on Tuesday, while $10 million will be raised through a non-underwritten security purchase plan available to eligible investors.
The placement is being fully underwritten by JP Morgan and UBS.
Further funding of $43 million will be sourced from debt.
Charter Hall’s Long Wale REIT has recently hit the accelerator on its property purchases, spending $492 million on assets across the country in the first half of fiscal 2019 alone. The REIT owns 114 properties with a lease expirty profile of 12.5 years.
The REIT has made several other property purchases including $159 million worth of office space across Brisbane and Perth and late last year, after fresh fundraising, bought 27 agricultural properties across Australia.
