MGPA sees European opportunities

Sydney: MGPA, a fund manager controlled by Macquarie Group Ltd managing $11 billion (Dh40 billion) in property assets, is raising money to invest in European real estate and plans its first Australian property investment within six months.

“There’s going to be some interesting, once-in-a-decade opportunities to acquire assets at below replacement cost prices in markets that have some reasonable prospects for growth” in Europe, Executive Chairman James Quille said from Singapore on September 14. In Australia, a withdrawal of lenders from commercial property “has caused a big widening in spreads between prime and secondary assets”.

Australian banks have cut outstanding lending to commercial property by 15 per cent since its 2009 peak, driven by an increase in non-performing loans and the exit of some foreign- owned lenders, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia. In Europe, the amount of new lending for commercial real estate fell by about 77 per cent from 2007 through 2011, estimates by CBRE Group Inc show.

The Singapore-based group - formerly Macquarie Global Property Advisors, of which Australia’s biggest investment bank still owns 56 per cent - last month opened its first Australian office in Sydney and appointed Hamish MacDonald, its former UK head of acquisitions in London, to run it, Quille said.