Three Woolworths anchored assets on East Coast

SYDNEY 17 October 2023 - Listed shopping centre owner, Region Group (ASX: RGN) are looking to divest three (3) Woolworths-anchored, convenience and essential service-based retail properties located across Australia’s East Coast.

JLL’s Sam Hatcher, Nick Willis, Stuart Taylor, Tom Noonan, and David Mahood have been exclusively appointed to handle the divestments.

The three assets, located across Victoria and New South Wales, consist of Wyndham Vale Square in Metropolitan Melbourne’s western suburbs; Drouin Central in Melbourne’s outer east; and Leura Shopping Centre located within the popular Blue-Mountains suburb of Leura, just 1.5 hours from the Sydney CBD.

All three assets offer long-term leases to Woolworths, supported by complementary speciality tenant uses, and extremely defensive income profiles. Each of the assets offer strong underlying land values in highly strategic retail locations. The freehold interests will be offered to market individually later this month, via Expressions-of-Interest.

Sam Hatcher, Head of Retail Investments (Australia) said “With all of the assets anchored by Woolworths and vast majority of income derived from non-discretionary and essential services, we continue to see very strong demand for this retail sub-sector due to the highly defensive and secure nature of the income streams. Neighbourhood shopping centres such as these are often referred to as ‘recession proof’.”

Senior Director of Retail Investments, Stuart Taylor said: “This offering represents a significant opportunity for shopping centre investors, amid extremely low supply of quality assets being presented to market. Transaction volumes of Neighbourhood Centres across Australia are down approximately 72% YTD on 2022, and 80% on the record high volumes seen in 2021, a trend primarily attributable to near zero supply of purchasing opportunities.”

JLL’s Director of Retail Investments Tom Noonan said: “We expect these properties to generate an enormous amount of interest from predominantly private investors which dominate the hotly contested sub-$30m price bracket.”

“The three assets present as a rare opportunity, being the first time in over 2 years that investors can secure a sub-$30m Woolworths anchored Neighbourhood Centre in either Melbourne or Sydney.”

Mr Hatcher concluded, “We expect these offerings to be strongly contested, given their attractive investment fundamentals and the opportunity they provide purchasers to acquire best in class retail, at a very attractive price point.”