MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA- Brookfield Office Properties Inc., based in New York City, plans to secure an indirect interest in two office towers in Australia for $263 million. The acquisitions of interest in Southern Cross West here and BankWest Tower in Perth will be made by the company’s Brookfield Prime Property Fund, and will be funded through a combination of available liquidity, bank debt and an acquisition bridge facility.
According to Australia tax law, an entity has an indirect interest in a corporation if the corporation is linked to another corporation (the directly controlled corporation) in which the entity has a direct interest. Brookfield Office Properties indirectly holds the remaining 50% interest in the Southern Cross property, also through the property fund. An affiliate, Brookfield Asset Management, holds the remaining 50% interest in BankWest Tower.
Southern Cross is located at the eastern end of the Melbourne CBD, bordering Bourke and Little Collins streets. The 20-story, 495,000-square-foot office tower is in Melbourne’s central business district, and forms part of the landmark Southern Cross development. The property was completed in 2009 and comprises 20 floors of office accommodation, which are 100% leased to Australia Post through 2019, and ground-floor retail.
The building BankWest Tower, which is 87% leased to BankWest as the anchor tenant, is on the corner of St Georges Terrace and William Street in the core of the Perth CBD. The 52-story, 423,000-square-foot commercial office tower in Perth’s central business district includes the four-level Palace Hotel, a ground floor banking chamber and associated offices on the upper levels.
Brian Kingston, president and CEO of Brookfield’s Australian Commercial Operations, said the acquisition is in keeping with the firm’s strategy of long-term ownership and operation of high-quality assets in dynamic and resilient markets. “We are pleased to increase Brookfield’s ownership interest in these two properties, further enhancing our well-established Melbourne and Perth portfolios on attractive investment terms,” he said in a statement.
Brookfield owns, develops and manages premier office properties in the United States, Canada and Australia. Its portfolio is comprised of interests in 109 properties totaling more than 78 million square feet in the downtown cores of New York City, Washington D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
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