Go north and go large
February 11, 2022
SENTINEL Property Group has expanded its new investment fund focused on northern Australia with the purchase of a fully tenanted large format retail centre.
The fund manager paid $5.175m for the 4WD Supacentre, which is the flagship store in Mackay for its camping and outdoor leisure products brand Adventure Kings.
The property at 2-6 Trade Court, in suburban Mount Pleasant, will be part of the Sentinel Northern Australia Investment Fund, a growing portfolio, which also includes two assets in Darwin.
The retail showroom and attached warehouse is leased for five years to 4WD Supacentre who have signed on as principal sponsor with the Dolphins for their first four seasons.
It was purchased from a private investor through Greg Lewis of Blacks Real Estate and Neville Smith of Colliers International for an initial passing yield of 7.01 per cent. It has a total lettable area of about 2278sq m and is on a 5323sq m site.
The weighted average lease expiry was 3.75 years. Sentinel has also bought a two-storey office building fully leased to the Northern Territory government at 4 Mansfield St, Palmerston City, south east of Darwin, for $8.5m. It also recently paid $7.4m for a cold storage facility at 2 McCarthy Close, Wishart, on the outskirts of Darwin leased to national tenants, including ASX-listed Inghams Group.
Sentinel is building a significant property portfolio in Darwin, including this month’s record breaking acquisition of the city’s landmark Casuarina Square shopping centre from GPT Group for circa $400m.
Sentinel chief executive Warren Ebert said they were always on the lookout for more acquisitions.
“We are very long in northern Australia, particularly in Darwin and North Queensland,” he said.
“The Northern Territory has an enormous couple of decades ahead of it with planned investments in the region of approximately $43bn, including the $22bn Australian ASEAN Power Link Project, the $4.7bn Santos Barossa Gas Field project and $8bn in government defence infrastructure,”
Mr Ebert said. “Mackay has been an important regional market in the success of Sentinel over the past decade. Mackay’s economic growth is driven by diversified sectors, including mining, agribusiness, tourism, education and construction.”