Aussies snap up Bayfair at $121.5m

By Graham Skellern
A large Australian property fund has paid a record $121.5 million for a half share of busy Bayfair Shopping Centre in the Bay's biggest commercial property deal.
The Australian AMP Shopping Centre Fund will take over running Bayfair by the year's end.
The deal included management rights and its fund manager Conrad Sinclair told the Bay of Plenty Times from Sydney it would like to be closely involved within two to three months.
Bayfair, which has an annual turnover of nearly $200 million a year, is presently managed by Livingstones on behalf of the co-owner Tower Asset Management.
Mr Sinclair said: "We won't be shipping over our own people; if Livingstones can't place the management staff elsewhere then they can work for us - that's the way we usually go."
AMP Shopping Centre, which looks after $A1.5 billion worth of superannuation funds, headed off 12 other bidders to grab a 50 per cent share of Bayfair.
It is the Bay's biggest commercial property deal and also the biggest sale in the country's retail sector for at least four years - since Westfield bought Queensgate Shopping Centre in Lower Hutt. The sale still needs to be approved by the Overseas Investment Office.
Mr Sinclair, fund manager for AMP Capital, said Bayfair was a terrific property: "It dominates trading in an area of strong population growth. We paid a good price but that was reflective of the shopping centre's tremendous development potential."
Tower Asset Management, which has owned Bayfair for 20 years, has been planning a further $40-$50m expansion with an eight-screen cinema and more specialty shops and carparking.
"Definitely, these are the sorts of things we will look at. We certainly want to improve what is already there and shopping centres evolve over time,"Mr Sinclair said.
It is AMP Shopping Centre's first move into New Zealand. In Australia it is involved in nine malls including Warringah near Sydney's northern beaches.
Tower Asset Management decided to sell 50 per cent of the Bayfair centre to balance its property fund, made up of superannuation and life insurance investments.
Bayfair had grown to the point where its assets made up 55 per cent of the property fund and it had become too dominant.
Tony Hildyard, chief executive of Tower Investments, would reduce Bayfair's share of the fund to 35-40 per cent and free up money for further expansion at the centre. "All four final bidders were very credible shopping centre managers and AMP Shopping Centre was a good match - they see long term value in Bayfair just as we do," he said.