Logos consortium buys Moorebank Logistics Park for $1.67 billion
Leading Asia-Pacific logistics asset management firm Logos and a consortium of partners have agreed to buy Moorebank Logistics Park (MLP) from Qube.
The $1.67 billion deal is in the form of a binding agreement for Australia’s largest intermodal logistics facility at Moorebank in south-western Sydney.
“The acquisition of Moorebank Logistics Park is a landmark investment by a consortium comprised of leading investors with a deep commitment to furthering the logistics, e-commerce and distribution landscape in Australia,” the Logos consortium says.
Logos has joined with existing partners, Ivanhoé Cambridge, AustralianSuper, and NSW Treasury Corporation (TCorp) as well as a new partner, AXA IM Alts, to deliver this milestone strategic investment.
“In addition to its investment alongside the consortium, Logos is appointed as the investment and development manager for MLP,” the consortium says.
“By acquiring MLP, the Logos consortium will establish a new benchmark for logistics development in the Asia-Pacific and contribute to ongoing further innovation in the sector globally.
“This acquisition positions the Logos consortium at the heart of a logistics revolution that will capture powerful economic benefits as the MLP’s intermodal terminals ramp up, increasing the efficient transfer of goods from Port Botany to customers around Australia,” the consortium says.
“Our collective vision for MLP represents a fundamental shift in east coast logistics, as a fully automated port-to-site rail link.
“The high levels of automation across the intermodals and warehousing will drive significant long-term cost advantages and improve supply chain predictability which will offer important labour efficiency and stock availability.
“The scale of a logistics site with this range of benefits, within a 30-minute drive of a major global CBD, has not been seen in Australia before.”
MLP is Australia’s largest intermodal freight facility.
The site includes 243 hectares of land being developed into industrial property and infrastructure, including potential for up to 850,000 square metres of warehouse opportunities directly adjacent to Australia’s largest rail intermodal facilities with direct linkage to Port Botany.
“We are delighted to announce Qube’s entry into a binding sale agreement with Logos, who is an ideal partner for the Moorebank project as they recognise the high quality and significant long-term strategic value of MLP,” Qube MD Paul Digney says.
“We are looking forward to partnering with the Logos consortium to realise MLP as Australia’s leading logistics site and to build on the value of the infrastructure that Qube already built at the precinct.”
Once complete, the deal will be seen as vindicating a long-term rail-to-port vision that began to take shape in 2007, when a related firm began raising $100 million for intermodal facilities in Moorebank and Minto.
The roots of the concept were earlier and involve d Qube precursor firm Kaplan, through P&O Trans Australia, a joint venture with DP World, and Queensland Rail (QR) linking for a development at Yennora. This was seen as an interim step towards building Moorebank
Digney was P&O Trans Australia MD at the time.
Read about how the Moorebank concept began, here
In explaining the logic of the consortium’s move, Logos notes that changes in consumer behaviour and expectations, especially since the emergence of Covid-19, have driven significant impacts on supply chains.
This has forced distributors and retailers to look for longer-term solutions to meet customer demand in food, cold storage, pharmaceutical, freight and distribution as a whole.
“Connectivity, efficiency and intermodal capability are critical components of a pre-eminent logistics site, and no site is better equipped to facilitate market-leading levels of scale and automation than the Moorebank precinct,” Logos head of Australia and New Zealand Darren Searle says.
“The demand from global and domestic customers for high-quality, larger, automated distribution warehouses and fulfilment centres has continued to grow, and the Logos consortium is delighted to be advancing NSW’s pre-eminent position in the national logistics network through the acquisition of MLP.”
Logos notes that with the growth of the e-commerce industry, strength and resilience of supply chains is critical.
It sees the site’s location in Sydney’s South West precinct is seen as “highly strategic”, providing direct access to the M5 motorway, M7 motorway, and Hume Highway, servicing key freight corridors through NSW.
In particular, it dubs direct-rail access to Port Botany by MLP as “unrivalled”.
“The supply chain benefits offered by the increased access to freight by rail over road will benefit the tenants of MLP enormously, and the connectivity between Port Botany, the distribution centre at Moorebank and the warehouses on site will offer unparalleled operational savings for importers and exporters,” Searle says.
“The site benefits extend far beyond just the tenants.
“By 2030, MLP is aiming to reduce Sydney and interstate truck travel by 243,000km per day, and lower carbon emissions by the equivalent of removing 11,000 vehicles from the road for a full year.”