Arena REIT lists $228 million childcare centre portfolio with $1.05 share price

Larry SchlesingerDecember 7, 2020

The listed property trust sector (A-REITs) gained a new participant yesterday with ArenaREIT, a childcare centre property trust, floating with a share price of $1.05

This represented a premium to its net tangible assets of $1 per share and is also a premium to its initial offer price of $1.01 per unit.

The full initial offer of $75 million was taken up ahead of listing yesterday.

The Melbourne-based trust, formerly the Arena Childcare Property Fund, is managed by Arena Investment Management Limited and comprises 172 childcare centres and 5 childcare centre development land sites located in Australia, valued at $228 million (as at 31 December 2012).

The portfolio has a relatively long weighted average lease expiry (WALE) of 8.2 years as of December 2012 and an occupancy rate of 97.7% as of March 2013.

Two thirds of the portfolio (66.3% by value) is leased to childcare group Goodstart which purchased the collapsed ABC Learning business.

Goodstart is owned by the charitable organisations The Benevolent Society, Mission Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Social Ventures Australia.

The trust earned rental income of $11.05 million for the half year to December 31 2012 down slightly from $11.8 million in the prior corresponding period.

The joint managing directors of the fund are James Goodwin and Bryce Mitchelson.

The managers of the trust intend to diversify over time expanding beyond childcare into education, healthcare and government tenanted facilities.

Arena REIT trades under the ASX code of ARF. 

It was established as an unlisted trust in 2003 investing into childcare centres. 



Larry Schlesinger

Larry Schlesinger was a property writer at Property Observer

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