Charter Hall Direct acquires $126m of assets in Sydney, Brisbane

Charter Hall Direct, which is a part of the Charter Hall Group (CHC) and has $23.2 billion under management, has announced three property acquisitions in Sydney and Queensland for its funds totalling $126 million.

The acquired properties included a 10-storey freehold building in Brisbane CBD ($93 million), a $71.6 million freestanding cross-dock warehouse facility in south-western Sydney and a $7.9 million food retail complex, 80 kilometres south-east of the Brisbane CBD.

The ownership of the first property would be shared 50 per cent by the unlisted Charter Hall Direct PFA Fund (PFA) and 50 per cent by the ASX-listed Charter Hall Long Wale REIT (CLW) and is said to meet the key requirements of the Charter Hall Direct PFA Fund, which focuses on properties leased by government and high-quality corporate covenants.

Charter Hall’s head, Steve Bennett, said this acquisition would also increase the diversification of the PFA property portfolio, which would exceed $400 million.

Also, the three transactions would take the Charter Hall Direct suite of funds to more than $3.3 billion.

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The firm said it had seen demand from self-managed super fund (SMSF) investors for high-quality direct property funds, given that banks had announced restrictions on lending within SMSFs.

“Charter Hall funds offer the prospect of total returns of around nine per cent per annum with monthly or quarterly income distributions depending on the fund,” Bennett said.

“The combination of attractive returns backed by quality tenants on long leases is, we find, resonating with SMSF investors in particular.”