Primewest secures $34m Byford Village Shopping Centre, Perth

Coles-anchored daily needs retail asset secured for the Matrix Trust

Centuria Capital Group subsidiary, Primewest, has acquired the Coles-anchored Byford Village Shopping Centre along with an adjoining vacant site in a $33.75 million transaction on behalf of its Matrix Trust, a pure-play daily needs retail (DNR) trust.

The acquisition, located at 20 Abernethy Road, Byford WA, was secured on a sale-and-leaseback agreement.

In addition to the supermarket, the three year old shopping centre also provides 11 specialty stores including Priceline Pharmacy and The Coffee Club, a children’s playground, and 360-car parking lot.

Securing the adjacent vacant site provides the Trust with a future value-add development opportunity. Byford benefits from its position within a significant outer southeast Perth growth corridor.

Bruce McCully, Primewest Head of Retail and Primewest WA General Manager, said, “We are very familiar with the Byford community and opportunities the growing southeast Perth region provides. Primewest has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with the Coles Group and we are very pleased we could arrange this sale-and-leaseback agreement, which is mutually beneficial to both parties.”

Prior to the shopping centre’s development, Primewest originally held the strategic Byford site for a decade before divesting the land to the Coles Group. Since then, the Byford area has undergone significant transformation and its population growth is expected to rapidly rise further. The area will also shortly benefit from the Byford railway extension.

Coles Group has transformed the Byford site into a burgeoning local community shopping centre, which opened in 2017 and is the dominant retail centre in the catchment.

The transaction adds to Matrix Trust’s existing $254 million DNR portfolio, which includes the Spring Farm Shopping Centre in southwest Sydney; two western Sydney, Woolworths-anchored centres, Pemulwuy Marketplace and West Ryde Marketplace; and Melbourne Square, Southbank.

The five-asset portfolio provides a Weighted Average Lease Expiry (WALE) of 9.4 years.

Primewest’s Group DNR portfolio is valued at $1.3 billion, complemented by a further $1.3 billion Large Format Retail (LFR) portfolio¹.

Recently, Primewest merged with the ASX-200 listed Centuria Capital Group. The enlarged company manages a $17.4 billion platform of Funds Under Management (FUM) including $11 billion of unlisted real estate funds and $5.5 billion of listed real estate funds.

1. As at 30 June 2021