As an active buyer and seller in US real estate, AMP Capital’s Global Direct Property Fund (GDPF) has acquired a Houston-based industrial property for US$17 million, its fifth acquisition in the past year and first industrial property purchase.
The property is a Class A, 27,846 square metre, 100 per cent leased, single-tenant industrial property located in a core Houston industrial sub-market of Sugar Land.
“We are pleased with this off-market transaction, which was acquired at a favourable price relative to recent comparable transactions and well below replacement cost,” GDPF manager Tim Fallet said.
He added that the property was significantly under-rented and there was an opportunity to add value by renegotiating the lease with the current tenants, or if they left in 2015 it would be possible to capture the strong demand for high quality industrial space by releasing the vacant space at higher rents.
“This investment also provides the fund with exposure to a very strong and liquid submarket, at attractive pricing per square metre and enhanced portfolio diversification, given this is the fund’s first industry property purchase,” Fallet said.
“While the fund has a buy-side bias to the Unites States, we expect transaction activity to pick up in its Asian and European target markets over the next 12 months.”
The Houston purchase comes less than a month after the fund bought up a city office tower in California.
