U.S. Firm Agrees to Buy Australian REIT

HRPT Properties Trust, Newton, Mass., has agreed to purchase an Australian real estate investment trust to create a platform for further purchases of Australian properties. The U.S. company plans to buy MacarthurCook Industrial Property Fund and make it a subsidiary. Under part of the agreement, HRPT will buy all of the fund's equity units outstanding at A$0.40 a unit, or about A$39.4 million ($36.5 million) in total. It also will assume or prepay approximately A$46.4 million ($43.0 million) of the Australian REIT's debt. In total, HRPT plans to pay a total consideration of about A$85.8 million ($79.5 million) for the fund. The Sydney-based MacarthurCook Ltd., a subsidiary of AIMS Financial Group, currently owns the fund. Under the terms of the agreement it would continue to manage the fund's properties after the acquisition, with HRP and its manager planning to work together to expand HRP's investments in Australia. HRP said it believes "that Australian properties and the Australian economy generally are well positioned by geography and natural resources to benefit from the economic growth in the Asia Pacific region in the future." But the purchase of the Australian REIT is conditioned upon approvals from the fund's unitholders and other conditions related to cross-border transactions such as Foreign Investment Review Board approval in Australia. If approved, HRPT plans to fund the acquisition with cash on hand and available drawing capacity under its unsecured credit facilities. It said the acquisition could close in the second half of this year.