Charter Hall Group has teamed up with Allianz Real Estate to acquire the AUD648 million (USD449 million) portfolio of ALDI logistics assets in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The ALDI distribution centres were designed and built by ALDI to a high-quality specification, and sold with seven-year lease back initial terms plus multiple seven-year options.

The four asset portfolio comprises Sydney logistics facilities in Minchinbury and Prestons while the Melbourne facility is located in the Dandenong industrial precinct.

Meanwhile, the Brisbane asset is located in the Northern suburb of Brendale.

“We are delighted to once again extend our cross-sector relationship with ALDI who will become a sizeable cross sector tenant customer”, said David Harrison, Managing Director and Group CEO of Charter Hall.

“Accessing the on-going growth and resilience of grocery retailing in Australia has been a consistent thematic driving the growth of our industrial and logistics portfolio toward AUD10 billion and beyond, now representing 25% of our enlarged AUD40 billion platform”, he added.

“This transaction is in line with our strategy of aligning our investments to secular mega trends in the Asia-Pacific region”, said Rushabh Desai, Asia Pacific CEO of Allianz Real Estate.

“Demand for logistics in Australia is underpinned by growth in e-commerce, increasing international trade and the resilience of non-discretionary retail spending".

"This will provide our investors an attractive distribution yield”, Desai added.