Charter Hall has continued to grow its leading convenience retail portfolio with $200 million of selective acquisitions over the past four months. Its most recent acquisition was the Corio Village Shopping Centre in Victoria, purchased for $146 million from syndicator IP Generation.
Corio Village located just 8km north of Geelong CBD and 60km southwest of Melbourne CBD, is the dominant shopping centre in the North Geelong catchment, recording about $200 million in annual turnover.
The 33,600m2 shopping centre is anchored by Coles, Kmart and Woolworths, six mini-majors and 68 specialty stores.
Charter Hall Retail CEO, Ben Ellis, said: “As the largest owner of convenience retail in Australia, with a portfolio of $14 billion, Charter Hall continues to selectively curate portfolio strategies for its managed funds.
“The Corio acquisition continues the successful growth of our convenience partnership acquisitions. We pursued Corio for its anchor supermarket convenience attributes, which reflected a 7% cap rate. Combined with forecast income growth, it’s expected to deliver accretive returns for the partnership.”
Charter Hall Managing Director & CEO, David Harrison, further commented, “We have always had high conviction on convenience retail, and see it continuing to outperform discretionary retail larger malls. We expect convenience retail to deliver leading total returns across all sectors within Australia.
“We know these catchments well, having also acquired Leopold south of Geelong, along with the very successful development of a Woolworths, Bunnings and Officeworks anchored shopping centre at North Altona in the southwest of Melbourne metropolitan area.
“The fact that most convenience centres can be acquired at deep discounts to replacement cost is a core value metric we focus on within our selective acquisition program,” said Harrison.
This sale, secured off-market by the Charter Hall transactions team and negotiated via the vendor’s agents Nick Willis and Sam Hatcher from JLL, demonstrates continued investor confidence in sub-regional shopping centres, driven by their essential role within communities and robust tenant mix.
Nick Willis, Senior Director at JLL said: “Access to high-quality sub-regionals is becoming increasingly constrained as we continue to experience a global resurgence in capital demand for the sector. This transaction provides evidence of the shifting buyer profile away from the manager/syndicator groups who have led the acquisitions charge over the last five years, to now increased participation from institutions and REITs as they shift back to net acquirers.”
JLLs analysis of the sub-regional sector highlights that over the last five years the sector has seen volumes of 11.5 billion, exceeding all other sub-sectors. The largest acquirer of these assets has been the syndicators who have amassed more than 50% of all sub-regionals sold during the same period.
Founder and CEO of IP Generation Chris Lock said: “The sale of Corio Village marks the completion of a comprehensive asset improvement strategy after six years of ownership. Through targeted repositioning works, we have successfully transformed the centre into a core convenience hub for the community, while delivering strong outcomes for our investors. We remain focused on the retail sector and continue to seek opportunities.”
Sam Hatcher, Head of Retail Investments at JLL said: “The sector’s improving global narrative underwritten by strong fundamentals and positive tailwinds are driving activity in the retail sector including a growing trend of offshore capital sources reengaging in the Australian market. These trends are expected to continue throughout 2025 as competition to secure assets heightens in a supply-constrained market.”
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