Brisbane-based fund manager Sentinel Property Group is believed to have struck a deal to buy a Gold Coast office building for about $70 million.
If a sale of The Rocket office tower at Robina is finalised, it will be one of the group’s, and the Gold Coast’s, largest ever acquisitions by value.
Sentinel managing director Warren Ebert yesterday confirmed the group was conducting due diligence on the tower.
He said it also had launched a capital raising for a stand-alone trust to acquire the asset.
Sentinel has a growing Gold Coast investor base and is hosting its first investor function at Surfers Paradise on Thursday. It has been looking to secure a Gold Coast investment for some time, circling a number of properties in recent years including, reportedly, the Oasis Shopping Centre at Broadbeach that sold earlier this year for $103.5m.
In September, Sentinel paid $20m for the Coles-anchored Jimboomba Junction Shopping Centre south of Brisbane.
The Rocket is Robina’s first commercial tower and is the Gold Coast’s second-largest commercial premises after Surfers Paradise office tower 50 Cavill Avenue. The 16-level A-grade building was designed by architects Woods Bagot and developed by Robina Group in 2009.
The 12,814sq m building is 92 per cent occupied. Tenants include Slater & Gordon Lawyers, GHD, Auswide Bank, Aitken Legal, WMS Solutions, Members Alliance and Evocca College.
Marketing agents Mark Witheriff and Tania Moore from Knight Frank as well as Robina Group declined to comment on the sale negotiations yesterday.
Sentinel’s biggest acquisition to date was the Citilink Business Centre at Brisbane’s Bowen Hills, settled in December for $62m.
The group is eyeing a potential IPO and has said it may sweeten the deal with an offer of an interest in its management company in a planned float.
Sentinel’s total national property portfolio comprises more than 30 retail, industrial, land and office assets in Queensland, NSW and Victoria and it is on track to manage $1 billion worth of property assets.