Ben Ellis is the Head of Wholesale for Charter Hall’s retail division and responsible for a portfolio of more than 100 properties worth more than $4 billion. Ben’s role includes development and implementation of fund strategy, investor relations including capital raising and delivery of investment performance. Ben has more than 20 years’ experience in the retail sector covering leasing, asset management, development management and funds management both domestically and abroad. Ben has been with Charter Hall since 2010 and prior to that worked with Macquarie as part of the real estate division based in Sydney, London and Warsaw during that time.
The Charter Hall Retail wholesale funds strategy is to optimise the performance of fund assets for sustainable growth and the creation of investor wealth. The wholesale funds platform has a dual mandate with the portfolio made up of best in class long WALE retail assets and non-discretionary convenience and convenience plus shopping centres.
In less than five years, the Long WALE retail strategy has grown from five assets valued at $200 million to a portfolio of more than 100 assets valued at more than $2.5 billion today.
This growth has been driven by Charter Hall’s key focus on building and maintaining strong tenant customer relationships and our equally strong relationships with our investor customers.
Similarily, our shopping centre portfolio is deliberately focused on the convenience based non-discretionary end of the market leveraging off market leading grocery and everyday needs brands in Coles, Woolworths and ALDI to drive customer visitation and sales while also benefiting from a long weighted average lease expiry profile and sustainable long-term income growth.
Pacific Square Maroubra
Charter Hall’s strategy of targeting formerly niche asset classes being Bunnings Warehouses and ALH leased hospitality venues on long-term leases has proven to be highly resilient and profitable for our investors given the long-term sustainable income streams generated from market leading tenants with high-quality covenants.
In addition, the breadth of the Charter Hall platform both within the retail sector and also across office, industrial and social infrastructure has enabled Charter Hall to access high-quality opportunities and deliver upon key strategies with our investor and tenant customers, many of which span multiple real estate sectors.
Managing risk
We manage risk by owning a mix of single tenanted assets coupled with high-quality lease covenants, fixed rental increases and minimal exposure to landlord capital requirements. This ownership approach has proven to be highly attractive to both the institutional and private investor markets.
Living in Europe during the height of the GFC and seeing the turmoil created in the real estate investment markets, the Charter Hall Long WALE thematic resonated strongly with me and continues to today.
From a shopping centre perspective, we remain disciplined to our focus on ownership of high-quality convenience-based assets, underpinned by market leading grocers and driven by Charter Hall’s retail management platform located in every state across the country.
Pacific Square Maroubra
Recent activity
It has been a very active 12 months. The Wholesale Retail division added $350 million of assets under management, including a 49.5% share of Salamander Bay Square alongside Charter Hall Retail REIT (ASX:CQR), adding to the existing JV asset Gateway Plaza Leopold. In addition, The Long Wale Hardware Partnership transacted off market on five assets with Bunnings, for a total consideration of close to $250 million. This portfolio acquisition increases LWHP’s exposure to Bunnings assets under management to 26 representing more than $1.2 billion in total value.
Outlook
Going forward, we see demand for high-quality long WALE and convenience-based retail assets remaining strong as they are underpinned by market leading, highly profitable tenants. We believe that this will be a far more resilient investment strategy against any future structural change likely to occur within the retail sector.
