Zenith Centre at Chatswood sold

Investment manager Centuria has teamed up with global investment firm BlackRock to acquire the Zenith office complex at Chatswood, on Sydney’s North Shore, from co-owners DEXUS Property Group and GPT Wholesale Office Fund.

Centuria and BlackRock paid a total of $279 million for the two 21-storey buildings at 821 Pacific Highway. Total net lettable area is 44,000 sqm.

Centuria plans to hold the property through an unlisted syndicate, Centuria Zenith Fund, which has forecast a distribution yield of 7.6 per cent in 2017.

The sale price of $139.5 million to DEXUS represents a 7.1 per cent premium to book value.

“This transaction represents an opportunity for us to divest one of our non-strategic office properties at a premium to book value. The sale is consistent with our strategy of focusing on our core markets and results in more than $3 million of property divestments being completed or exchanged across the group so far in FY16,” says Darren Steinberg, chief executive of DEXUS.

In 2006 GPT paid about $125 million for its half share in the complex to the then DB RREEF. 

The sale was negotiated by CBRE and Savills.