Foodstuffs selling six supermarkets

File photo

Foodstuffs' lower North Island cooperative is selling six supermarkets to help fund an expansion programme.

The operations being sold include New World supermarkets in Miramar, Hastings, Greenmeadows, Waipukurau and Marton, and a Pak `n Save operation in New Plymouth.

The portfolio is being marketed by Bayleys Wellington through an international tender closing on June 23.

All the sites being offered for sale have 15-year lease terms in place, along with two 10-year rights of renewal.

Combined annual rental revenue is $4.752 million plus GST.

Bayleys Wellington director Mark Hourigan said the portfolio was one of the largest Bayleys had handled through the office in recent years, with its sheer size meaning it needed to be marketed overseas. Already expressions of interest had come from Australia and South East Asia.

Foodstuffs (Wellington) property division general manager Wayne O'Styke said the cooperative was upgrading the New World supermarket in Island Bay, Wellington, and was about to start an expansion and upgrade of New World Carterton.

Planning was under way for new supermarkets in the Wellington suburbs of Churton Park and Newlands, while later this year work would be starting on New World developments near the Basin Reserve in Wellington. In the Wellington suburb of Tawa, the cooperative would be taking over and enlarging a property now occupied by a Woolworths store and mall.

"The scope and size of these developments requires a considerable degree of funding, and to access that, the company has prudently chosen to realise capital from some of its property ownership," O'Styke said.

- NZPA