Aussie firm shopping for NZ property

This year, the Australian Stock Exchange-listed Centro paid $12.5m for the Meadowlands shopping centre in Auckland, hard on the heels of its $23.4m purchase of the Barrington mall in Christchurch.

It also owns the 7682sq m Kelston mall in Auckland and the 17,956sq m Porirua Mega Centre in Wellington.

Westfield, ING, AMP, Multiplex, Macquarie Countrywide and the Commonwealth Bank-run Kiwi Income Property Trust are other Australian mall titans are also expanding their centres in New Zealand.

Meadowlands' vendors were the Hind Shopping Centre, owned by active Auckland investors the Jhunjhunwalas - who sold Central Park to the Macquarie Goodman Property Trust for more than $52m two years ago.

Centro chief operating officer Graham Terry said his group wanted more property, "whether it's established malls, proposed malls - anything that's retail in New Zealand."

"Yields, quality of shops and the culture of the country are attractive to us."

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