Quattro RE puts A$431 million NZ property portfolio float plans on hold

Monday 20th October 2014

Quattro RE, an Australian asset management company, has paused its plans to list a New Zealand portfolio of six properties valued at A$431 million on the ASX blaming global stock market volatility.

The Sydney-based company was looking to raise A$305 million in an initial public offer selling shares of the real estate investment trust, made up of four New Zealand commercial properties and two industrial estates, at A$1 apiece. The company has put the plans on hold, after heightened uncertainty on the ASX and in global markets saw the S&P/ASX 200 Index decline some 4.7 percent over the past three months.

“Despite the extensive local and international marketing of the IPO, which generated very positive feedback, the current market volatility has prompted us to put the transaction on hold for the time being," a spokesman for Quattro said to BusinessDesk in an emailed statement. The company was still in talks with the New Zealand vendors to buy the properties, the spokesman said.

Quattro is in talks to acquire Precinct Properties New Zealand's 125 The Terrace building in Wellington and SAP Tower in Auckland, and Goodman Property Trust's Enterprise Park at Wiri and SuperCheap Auto, part of the Savill Link Estate in Otahuhu. Quattro is also in talks to buy Wellington-based Spark Central, owned by Ian Cassel's The Wellington Company, and RJ Holdings' AIA Building in Auckland.

Goodman's chief executive John Dakin said the deal for Quattro to acquire two of its Auckland industrial estates was still on the table, as the businesses waited for the stock market volatility to ease.

"We will work with them over the next few weeks," Dakin said. "It is a matter of wait and see at the moment."

The float was being managed through Deutsche Bank and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Goodman units rose 1.4 percent to $1.10 on the NZX in morning trading, and have advanced some 10 percent since the start of the year. Precinct Properties gained 0.5 percent to $1.09 and has increased 9.6 percent over the year.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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