Aqualand allegedly purchases North Sydney tower for $78 million

Aqualand allegedly purchased an office block in North Sydney for $78 million, sold by General Nice Group, a Chinese private trading company. Previously, the company purchased a tower at 132 Arthur Street for at least $70 million, sold by fund manager Centennial Property Group.

Furthermore, Aqualand secured a conditional deal in March to purchase the Fujitsu Centre above North Sydney train station for about $168 million. It was reportedly sold by the Phillip Wolanski’s Denwol Group.

According to The Australian, title deeds indicate the owner of 146 Arthur Street as JW Argyle Nominee Pty Ltd, which is being directed by Zhaoming Chen. Based on LinkedIn, Chen is the construction co-ordinator for Aqualand Projects. Aqualand is yet to comment about the report.

In 1989, the office tower was built and has been refurbished. It had 10 levels of office space, as well as a net lettable area of 8171sq m. Moreover, the tower has three levels of basement car parking for 124 cars, or one space for every 66sq m of net lettable area. The views of Sydney Harbour and the Neutral Bay are accessible here.

CBRE’s Sharon Yang took care of the negotiations for the deal, which according to her, emphasized the rising interest from foreign buyers in capital city commercial property investments. She explained that offshore investors are currently focusing on residential sites and income producing assets also appeal to them. “Sydney’s strong office market fundamentals and the outlook for rental growth in satellite locations, such as North Sydney, has been a key draw card,” she said.

Yang went on to explain that the strong office market fundamentals in Sydney and the outlook for rental growth in satellite locations have become major draw cards. One example of these is the North Sydney.

This has resulted to a tightening in North Sydney’s prime office yield to 5.95 percent. Investors, both offshore and domestic, see a potential for further rental growth underpinned by dropping vacancy rates and ongoing improvements in infrastructure.

Last month, The Australian reported that Aqualand was keeping its eye on the Fujitsu Centre in North Sydney while it reportedly considers purchasing another major office building in the area. The group swooped on the building which was situated directly above the North Sydney railway station, striking a deal to purchase it from Phillip Wolanski’s Denwol Group. The sale was perceived as a major uplift for the group, which bought the tower in North Sydney for $89.15m in 2014.