Updated as at 31 December 2010
The Commonwealth Property Office Fund (CPA or the 'Fund') is a sector specific listed office trust. The Fund was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in April 1999 with a market capitalisation of $545.5 million. On listing, the Fund had a property portfolio of seven assets totalling $619.5 million. A majority of the assets were purchased from Commonwealth Bank of Australia through the corporate reconstruction legislation, which resulted in non-core assets being rationalised off the balance sheet. It represented a great opportunity and placed CPA in a unique position with the Manager able to construct a fund with an established high quality income stream.
This provided the springboard for the Fund to deliver on its strategy of optimising unitholder value through active management of its portfolio and investment in quality properties.
In October 2002, the Fund acquired a $1.18 billion portfolio of office and industrial assets previously held in the former Colonial First State Property Trust Group (CFT) portfolio.
For more information on CFT, or if you require information about the tax implications of selling your CPA units that you acquired as a result of your previous ownership of CFT units, please click here.
On 7 April 2003, the Fund settled on the sale of the non-core CFT industrial portfolio for a total consideration of $500 million. This reflected a premium of 10% to the asset book value of $451 million. The sale was negotiated on a delayed payment basis providing the Fund with an attractive and secure income stream and flexibility to fund future acquisitions of prime quality office assets in key markets at the optimal time in the cycle.
Since that time, the Fund has acquired office properties across Australia with a total value of over $1 billion.
