David Harrison

Charter Hall Group (Charter Hall or the Group) is pleased to announce its Charter Hall Prime Office Fund (CPOF) has ranked as a Global Sector Leader in the 2022 Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) for leadership in integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations.

This year, 24 Charter Hall funds participated in the GRESB Assessment with 17 of these achieving scores within the top 20% of the GRESB universe. Our unlisted Retail funds are also credited as Regional Sector Leaders for Oceania.

Established in 2009, GRESB is today used by more than 170 institutional investors and is considered to be the largest and leading assessment of the sustainability performance of real estate assets and portfolios. In 2022, more than 1,820 listed and unlisted portfolios participated in the assessment, representing USD$6.9 trillion in gross asset value under management across 74 countries.

Charter Hall’s performance in ESG benchmarks, including GRESB, is underpinned by our long-term commitment to integrating ESG into our business. This reflects our Group-wide approach to actively partnering with customers to drive mutual success, including environmental and social outcomes, alongside financial.

Charter Hall Managing Director & Group CEO, David Harrison, said, “We are pleased to see our funds perform as global and regional sector leaders with 17 of our funds and partnerships in the top quintile of the GRESB assessment in 2022, which is exceptional considering the benchmarks’ continued growth”.

“We have accelerated our commitment to net zero carbon for Scope 1 and 2 emissions from 2030 to 2025. We believe our approach to sustainability will continue to attract and retain the best tenant and investor customers, while making a valuable contribution to improving our communities and the planet.

“Combined, our efforts support a lower cost of operation as well as long-term risk adjusted returns for investors across our portfolios,” he said.

This year’s performance in GRESB is further evidence of Charter Hall’s continued approach to integrating ESG into asset creation and operation, through securing onsite and offsite renewables, transitioning buildings away from fossil fuel and reducing our carbon footprint.

Charter Hall Office CEO, Carmel Hourigan, said “At Charter Hall, we take pride in understanding what our customers need and value to deliver best-in-class, sustainable and future-ready assets.”

“Our Office portfolio offers leading green credentials, including designing carbon-ready developments with all electric plant and equipment, demonstrating our commitment to provide stabilised, sustainable assets and low carbon outcomes,” she said.

Charter Hall Retail CEO, Ben Ellis, added “ We are thrilled to see our listed and unlisted Retail funds increase performance in GRESB for the period. We have partnered with customers to install more than 22.5MW of onsite solar and 6.5MW of operating battery capacity in the portfolio – lowering our operating cost and supporting our goal to achieve net zero by 2025.”

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Led by Scott McLennan as Head of Distribution, the expansion of the distribution team reflects the strong growth of Charter Hall’s Direct business from $3 billion to over $8 billion since 2018.

Charter Hall Direct CEO, Steve Bennett said, “Our investment in growing the distribution team reflects the strong demand for Direct’s leading unlisted property funds and a record year of capital inflows into our suite of funds.

“As the Head of Distribution, Scott is responsible for the expansion of the distribution team in each of the states. Scott has been with Charter Hall for five years and is well-positioned to lead the team in further growth out of our Sydney office.”

Mr McLennan said, “The state-based distribution team is designed to better service our growing adviser community in all states and territories. Having our team located close to our clients means we can work collaboratively together to further enhance client outcomes in terms of both service and product offerings.”

The new appointments include:

• Renee Oldfield joins as State Distribution Manager for Western Australia and South Australia, with more than 20-years’ industry experience. Renee has a diverse background in financial services advising across equity markets, property funds management cash and fixed income markets at Macquarie Bank, Aspen Group and FIIG Securities.
• Paul Ramsay has been appointed State Distribution Manager for Victoria and Tasmania, based in Melbourne. He joins the team from Franklin Templeton, where he was a key account manager. Paul also has more than 20-years’ experience in the funds management industry including the role of national manager-strategy investments at Australian Unity Wealth.
• Mark Weingarth has been appointed as the State Distribution Manager for New South Wales. He joins Charter Hall Direct from Macquarie Group where he led the sales and distribution strategy for Digital Portfolio Management and Managed Accounts. He has a strong history of working with advisory firms to improve client experience.
• Craig Harding and Marco Triani who have been with Charter Hall for more than five years also join the distribution team. Craig Harding has been appointed Business Development Manager for Queensland and Northern Territory and Marco Triani has been appointed Key Account Manager and will be based in NSW.

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DOF, which is an Australian direct commercial property fund (also known as an unlisted property fund) recently passed the $200 million equity inflow mark and has a current target raising of $220 million.

Zenith’s citation noted: “Zenith has a solid level of conviction in the abilities of Charter Hall, which underpins our faith in the ongoing strategy execution… Of particular note is the willingness of the Fund to co-invest in assets with institutional investors through managements’ institutional pooled funds. This has given DOF access to several high quality real estate opportunities which have typically remained out of reach for most retail investor funds.”

Head of Charter Hall Direct Richard Stacker said: “It is pleasing that the quality of both our strategy and execution is recognised by this leading research house.

“Investor interest in DOF has been strong and we expect to close the equity raising early in 2016. We continue to experience increased interest from self managed super fund (SMSF) trustees in this low yield environment. DOF offers returns of 7.5cpu p.a, with a projected total return, including capital appreciation, of around 10% pa – these are very attractive numbers when 3-year Term Deposits are around 2.65% and the ASX-200 declining during 2015. ”

DOF Fund Manager, Steven Bennett commented: “A realisation amongst investors which we are witnessing is that the trade-off between return and liquidity in an unlisted property fund is better understood – and one that’s clearly worth making.”

Zenith said: “It has a solid conviction in the Fund over the proposed term as a generator of reasonably low volatility income returns with modest capital appreciation.

“As a sector specific office fund, DOF’s portfolio is well diversified by number of tenants (64). The long lease expiry across the portfolio is of particular note, as it is relatively rare to be able to access a portfolio of office assets with such a long WALE.”

DOF’s current property portfolio value as at January 1, 2016 is over $720 million with a long lease profile (Weighted Average Lease Expiry of 9.4 years by income). DOF has solid rental uplifts over the medium-term, which should ensure effective rental growth remains robust across the bulk of the portfolio where tenant incentives are high across most markets.

Charter Hall’s Direct property business was recently awarded the Best Commercial Property Fund Manager by SMSF members at the prestigious CoreData Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF) Service Provider Awards. The Direct Property business has delivered attractive returns for investors and has been very active over the past five years. The IPD benchmark results showed Charter Hall’s unlisted retail funds and syndicates held five out of the top 10 positions for performance in the 12 months to 30 September 2015.

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