While the local REIT says the buildings "are representative of the company's entire portfolio of assets," they reportedly include property near O'Hare International Airport and the former Joliet Armory in southwest suburban Elwood. CenterPoint Properties Trust will keep a 5% interest in the assets and manage them.

While being able to put sales proceeds into its higher yielding "value-added" acquisitions and redevelopment projects, CenterPoint Properties Trust also locks up an exclusive trading partner in James Fielding Funds Management Limited, which manages JF US Industrial Trust for Mirvac Group. In exchange for agreeing to only acquire properties in the Chicago market through CenterPoint, James Fielding Funds Management Limited gets a right of first refusal on additional sales by the REIT.

"The initial sales and expected future sales to the venture is a pipeline to the Australian capital market, a new and likely continuing source of inexpensive investment capital," says CenterPoint Properties Trust president and chief financial officer Paul Fisher. "Moreover, the company expects the venture will become a regular counter-party in exchanges of stabilized property for 'value-added' opportunities in its portfolio."