Australia’s largest superannuation fund AustralianSuper has taken a 50% shareholding in Oxford Properties Group’s A$1.4 billion European industrial and logistics portfolio and its European investment and asset management business M7 Real Estate.
AustralianSuper said it aimed to build a significant industrial and logistics venture across Europe to be managed by M7 Real Estate, under its new strategic partnership with Oxford, a leading global real estate investor, developer and manager.
The A$341 billion retirement fund said the partnership would provide more capital to fund the growth of the portfolio with a target of up to A$7.5 billion gross asset value of high-quality ‘last mile’ and mid-box warehouses over the next three to five years.
Head of European Real Assets Paul Clark said AustralianSuper believed urban logistics and distribution represented one the most compelling sector opportunities in European real estate.
He said the fund had been tracking the sector for several years to find the right portfolio that met its ambitions, with strong fundamentals and significant growth potential.
“We are delighted to partner with the Oxford and M7 teams, investors with proven track records operating and growing high-quality logistics portfolios, to scale the (Supply Chain Income Partnership) ESCIP platform together using our collective expertise, generating long-term performance for members ,” Clark said a media release.
The joint venture, the first between AustralianSuper and Oxford, brought together two global institutional investors managing a combined $550 billion of long-term capital on behalf of over four million pension fund members.
The assets have strong environmental credentials, are focussed on submarkets characterised by acute supply demand tension, with 53% weighting to urban assets by estimated rental value (ERV).
In the United Kingdom these include London and the South-East (19% of total ERV) and the Midlands (14%), as well as Paris (15%), Copenhagen (11%) and Barcelona (8.2%) in mainland Europe.