Morning Briefing: Industrial property powerhouse offloads $350m in assets

An industrial property group has put more than a third of a billion assets on the sales block... Stocks are closing lower led by declines in retailers...

Industrial property powerhouse offloads $350m in assets
Goodman Group has put $350 million worth of Australian logistics assets on the block, according to an article in The Australian. 

Having already sold $650m in property to Charter Hall Group, the latest asset sell will offload seven assets across three states in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.

Goodman recently entered a $2.1bn partnership in Britain with two of its major partners, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Dutch group APG Asset Management, to maintain the pace of development globally.  

“(For this) We’ve got £100m in the partnership and there is another £500m in planning that are in the partnership or in different stages of due diligence,” says chief executive Greg Goodman.

“We’re using this time in the market to develop A-grade warehouses while there is good demand.” 

To fuel development, the group had been selling “less good” assets to institutions who were keen to raise their profile.

“We’re just narrowing our focus,” Mr Goodman said. “We’ve got around $30bn of assets around the world … at this part of the cycle our aim is to own the best $30bn around the world.”
 
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Stocks are closing lower led by declines in retailers
NEW YORK (AP)€” Stocks are closing lower, led by declines in retailers after a disappointing forecast by Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart plunged 10 percent Wednesday after the huge retailer said it expects its profit to take a hit as the company works to fend off intensifying competition.

Traders were also sizing up a mixed batch of earnings. JPMorgan Chase led financial stocks lower after its earnings fell short of forecasts.

The Dow Jones industrial average gave up 157 points, or 0.9 percent, to 16,924.

The Standard & Poor's 500 lost nine points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,994. The Nasdaq composite declined 13 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,782.

Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.98 percent.
 
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