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A high-profile heritage building in Brisbane’s CBD has been acquired for $19.4 million by National Retail Group, a fast-growing retail asset services company that is backed by a Chemist Warehouse co-founders Sam Gance and Mario Verrocchi.
The four-level Heckelmanns building, located at 171 Elizabeth Street, joins a $1 billion active portfolio that NRG plans to expand rapidly over the next few years as it pursues a goal of “adding value to generational assets” across Australia and New Zealand.
The Brisbane deal follows the acquisition earlier this year of another heritage-listed building at 150 Rundle Mall in Adelaide for $10.85 million.
“It feels like we’re just getting started,” says Michael Spektor, CEO of National Retail Group.
“We are a privately held business and employ our own capital, which gives us a competitive advantage in the sector, enabling us to acquire and enhance community assets immediately upon purchase.
“Our strategy is to purchase, repurpose and add value to generational assets on behalf of a number of family offices that we represent.”
The Brisbane building, which was built between 1884 and 1891, sits across the road from the former Hilton Hotel and has served various commercial uses over the years.
The latest rendition of the property, designed by Andrea Giovanni Stombuco, has a net lettable area of about 2310sqm and retains the heritage façade which was added to the Queensland Heritage Register in 1992.
The property has been acquired from billionaire Sydney investor Nick Politis, who had owned it since 2016 when he paid $15.5 million for the property.
The Melbourne-based National Retail Group plans refurbish the office building which aligns with a strategy of sourcing assets with upside potential.
The company says the latest acquisition of the heritage buildings in Brisbane and Adelaide also demonstrates the company’s targeted strategy of securing and developing high-end assets across the country.
National Retail Group was founded in 2019 by Spektor, a former national asset manager at Chemist Warehouse, as a family office advisor to the medical, retail and commercial property sectors.
The company was originally established to manage Chemist Warehouse stores owned by Gance and Verrocchi who took their retail chemist chain from a privately-owned juggernaut to a major ASX-listed player through a merger with Sigma Healthcare (ASX: SIG) earlier this year that now values the group at $35 billion.
National Retail Group, which was originally focused on retail asset management and transactional services for “discreet high-net-worth families”, has transformed into a full-service, retail property asset management group that specialises in delivering Tier 1 services across the full property lifecycle from acquisition through development and then stabilisation via active asset management.
The group’s portfolio of national retail property assets and active development activity spans Australia and New Zealand, with the business also providing data services for property professionals such as real estate agents, valuers, developers and brokers.
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