Auckland's Vero Centre to be sold to international buyer

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One of the country’s biggest office blocks is being sold to a Hong Kong-China company.

Kiwi Property has reached a conditional agreement to sell the 38 storey Vero Centre in Auckland to the unnamed company for $458 million.

Chief executive Clive Mackenzie said the building had been a centrepiece of its portfolio but no longer fitted its business plans.

“It is no longer core to strategy, given the company’s focus on creating retail-led mixed-use centres.”

He said the company was recycling its capital.

“Once settled, the funds raised from the sale of the Vero Centre will be used to repay bank debt and then re-invested into other initiatives.”

The sale price was a discount of 1.9 percent to its valuation of last September, but Kiwi Property said it had returned 11 percent on its investment since it acquired the building in 2001.

The deal needs approval of the Overseas Investment Office.

Kiwi has been developing build-to-rent long term accommodation at the Sylvia Park shopping centre, and was also developing a new town centre south of Auckland in the small settlement of Drury.