Goodman Buying Western Sydney Airport Site From Saint-Gobain for $370M

Australian developer Goodman Group has agreed to acquire a logistics site next to the under-construction Western Sydney Airport for A$575 million ($370 million).

Market sources confirmed the ASX-listed builder’s role in the deal, which was announced Wednesday by the land’s seller, French building materials giant Saint-Gobain, with no mention of the buyer. Goodman declined to comment when contacted by Mingtiandi.

Saint-Gobain took control of the site in the Badgerys Creek industrial hub just east of the new airport after acquiring the land’s owner, Sydney-based building materials player CSR, in July of last year. Spanning 196 hectares (484 acres), the site is part of CSR’s real estate assets valued at A$1.3 billion and identified as monetisable by Paris-based Saint-Gobain, which expects to close the deal on 19 December.

“With the sale of Badgerys Creek and other CSR property assets already sold, this will bring CSR property assets already monetised to A$900 million,” Saint-Gobain said in a release.

Future Hotspot

The future Western Sydney Airport is being built to handle 10 million passengers and 220,000 tonnes of cargo annually, with operations expected to begin in 2026.

Other investors in the area include Singapore-based industrial specialist ESR, which two years ago acquired a Badgerys Creek site for development of 82,000 square metres of new logistics capacity.

In April of this year, express titan DHL revealed plans to build and run four warehouses across two neighbouring Badgerys Creek sites with a total floor space of over 126,000 square metres.

CBRE in February issued a report in which it identified 190 hectares of land available for industrial development in Western Sydney within 12 months.

“Western Sydney Airport is expected to further boost land absorption levels in the medium to long term,” the consultancy said.

Full-Year Turnaround

Goodman on Thursday posted a full-year profit of A$1.7 billion, reversing a year-earlier loss of A$98.9 million, as valuations rose A$1.6 billion across the group and its partnerships.

“We have looked beyond the volatility in the economic and trade environment over the last 12 months, and actively pursued long-term growth opportunities,” said CEO Greg Goodman. “These include making a number of strategic site acquisitions that will enable us to meet growing demand for data centres and capture future growth in logistics demand across our metropolitan locations.”

Last month, Goodman announced the creation of a $2.7 billion private vehicle focused on the Hong Kong data centre market, with co-investors including Dutch pension managers PGGM and APG, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and CBRE Investment Management.

The vehicle’s 325-megawatt seed portfolio comprises six assets including four stabilised data centres at Goodman’s 225MW Tsuen Wan West campus in the New Territories and two under-development projects.