Growth in the Regional Office Sector

July 20, 2017

The past quarter has seen Sentinel continue to grow its investments in the regional office sector and also finalise further strategic retail property sales.

Sentinel is both a buyer and a seller in the current market as we investigate all opportunities to maximise returns for our investors.

Our latest office investment is a premium-grade commercial office building in the Darwin CBD for $60.75 million. This is the fifth asset for the Sentinel Regional Office Trust, which since October 2016 has acquired five properties nationally for a total of more than $180 million.

We have a number of further regional office acquisitions in the pipeline for this new Trust, targeting diversity of income both geographically and by tenant, in line with our proven opportunistic buying strategy in sectors and locations yet to be fully identified by others. With initial distributions of 9.5% p.a. (paid monthly) for the Sentinel Regional Office Trust, demand from investors remains very strong.

Sentinel has also recently finalised its latest retail property divestments, a portfolio of three neighbourhood shopping centres in regional New South Wales for a total of $44.5 million.

We acquired these three centres three years ago, when they were unwanted by others, for $36 million, and the sale result is a showcase of our ability to buy at the right time and then sell at the right time.

This is the latest in a series of successful retail property sales by Sentinel and given the growing weight of money now chasing retail assets, in particular well-leased non-discretionary style centres in key regional locations, we are in the strong position of having plenty of stock and will review all opportunities to maximise returns on divestment.