"We're very excited," Broadreach director Heather Castellari tells GlobeSt.com. "We think this is going to be a great investment for us, and we are happy to be established in the Australian market." The country offers opportunities to invest in business and leisure hotels, she says, but the latter traveler is the focus for Ocean Resort Cairns, which accommodates adventurers drawn by the renowned reef and two main waterways, the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The Ocean Resort Cairns also serves people destined for tropical rain forests such as the Daintree National Park, and other venues such as Cooktown and the Cape York Peninsula.

"We expect to benefit from continued, growing demand for Pacific Rim travel," explains Castellari, who is charged with finding hospitality deals there and through the west coast of the US. Castellari joined Broadreach last year as part of a team added from Maritz, Wolff & Co., an LA-based operation that had assembled about a dozen hotels for a separate fund.

Ocean Resort Cairns is being purchased on behalf of the BRCP Realty II LP, a $700-million closed end fund that aims to invest in variety of commercial real estate enterprises. Office, residential and industrial assets are being targeted in the western US, Broadreach's traditional territory, whereas there are no geographic limits on the hospitality investments, says Castellari. The fund's first hospitality related investment was a 329-room hotel in Carlsbad, CA, in December 2006. At that point, Fund II had completed 11 investments for $917 million.