By Carolyn Cummins
GPT Group has expanded its wholesale mall business with the $496 million acquisition of a half share in Melbourne's Northland Shopping Centre from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).
The sale, to the GPT Wholesale Shopping Centre Fund was part of the agreement struck between GPT and the DEXUS/CPPIB consortium, in the complicated takeover of the Commonwealth Property Office Fund.
Under the arrangement, GPT Group, will also buy five office assets once the consortium integrates the rest of the CPA assets. Northland is a ''super regional'' centre, being more than 20,000 square metres, and is co-owned by CPA's former stablemate, CFS Retail Property Trust.
It is 11 kilometres north of the CBD, and has the sixth-highest-moving annual turnover of Melbourne's retail centres.
It is expected that interest in better-known shopping centres will put them on the market as part of the restructure of the Westfield Group into the Scentre Group and the internalisation of the CFS trust.