The five-runway airfield also hosts malls and a business park (Image: Moorabbin Airport)
A consortium led by US asset manager Barings is buying Melbourne’s Moorabbin Airport from Goodman Group for A$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion), after Australia’s competition regulator cleared the deal last month.
The real estate arm of Barings, a unit of insurer MassMutual, will oversee the 294 hectare (727 acre) property, including future development, with Goodman set to reinvest in a minority stake alongside pension giants Aware Super and Rest Super, according to a Monday announcement.
“The acquisition of this portfolio is the latest example of Barings’ ongoing positive outlook for the industrial sector in Australia and continues our investment strategy of targeting well-located precincts with significant underlying value and long-term development potential,” said Shaun Hannah, executive director of Barings Real Estate Australia.
The announcement follows the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s approval of the transaction on 21 May, after the regulator had launched a review in April of the consortium’s bid for the five-runway general aviation airport in Melbourne’s southern suburbs.
Beyond Runways
Opened in 1949, Moorabbin Airport sits 21 kilometres (13 miles) southeast of Melbourne’s central business district and supports flight training, private air charter, freight, recreational flying, emergency services and other general aviation activity, with limited scheduled passenger traffic via a daily service to Tasmania’s King Island.
Shaun Hannah, executive director of Barings Real Estate Australia (Image: Barings)
The airport is operated by Moorabbin Airport Corporation under a long-term lease granted by the Commonwealth government, with the site also comprising industrial and commercial assets including Kingston Central Plaza, Direct Factory Outlet and Chifley Business Park.
More than 250 businesses operate across the precinct, making Moorabbin a hybrid infrastructure and property platform whose value has increasingly been tied to industrial, logistics, retail and office uses surrounding the airfield.
Goodman Group purchased the airport in 2011 for A$201.5 million from interests linked to the Goodman family. The ASX-listed builder has since developed the surrounding land into a mixed-use precinct, with the current disposal extending the company’s programme of recycling capital from stabilised assets.
“The area comprises high-quality, well-located assets with strong underlying fundamentals, reflecting the value created through Goodman’s active management and development over time,” said Jason Little, chief executive for Australia at Goodman.
The ACCC said the transaction was unlikely to substantially lessen competition in any market, citing limited overlaps between the investors’ industrial landholdings in Greater Melbourne and the Moorabbin site, as well as limited overlap between Moorabbin’s aviation services and the investors’ other airport interests. The deal is expected to close in mid-2026.
Australia Buildout
Barings has been expanding its Australia real estate platform since its 2022 acquisition of Sydney-based Altis Property Partners, with former Altis executive Alastair Wright now leading the firm’s Asia Pacific business.
Altis and Aware Super, then known as First State Super, acquired Sydney’s Bankstown and Camden airports in 2015 for a reported A$203 million, while Barings and Aware have more recently partnered on a A$600 million Melbourne industrial estate purchase, a A$180 million Sydney shopping centre acquisition and a A$2 billion build-to-rent platform.
That WeAreLiving platform last month agreed to buy Frasers Property’s nearly completed Brunswick & Co build-to-rent project in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley for a reported A$285 million, adding 366 apartments to a pipeline of more than 2,000 dwellings across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra.
Barings has also continued to grow its real estate debt business, announcing in April a senior debt facility to MaxCap and Hickory for a 25-storey student housing project in Melbourne that will provide 892 beds and lift the firm’s Australia and New Zealand loan facilities past A$1 billion.
Rest Super has separately teamed with Barings on a A$400 million industrial estate serving Sydney’s southwestern corridor, while Goodman last year sold a Sydney industrial estate to Barings for A$75 million and earlier this year divested a pair of Sydney sheds to Aliro Group for A$438 million in what was Australia’s largest logistics transaction of 2026 at the time.
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