Oyster’s strategic acquisition: Spotlight on Home Straight Business Park

Home Straight Park was already performing well for investors when the opportunity to acquire an additional asset in the business park presented itself.

This presented a liquidity and reinvestment opportunity for Oyster, which led to the successful acquisition and fund restructure. Many investors from the original fund chose to grow their investment potential by reinvesting: a result that demonstrated their satisfaction with Oyster’s management approach.

Investment highlights

• Fund restructured in 2020 in order to make an acquisition – capital growth of $4,332,799 after four and a half years of ownership
• Annual capital return of 7.6 per cent
• Annual income return of 7.9 per cent
• Annual total return of 15.5 per cent

The 2020 divestment of 17 and 19 Home Straight was far from the end of the road for Oyster’s investment in this Te Rapa business park. Just over four years after that initial purchase, the team took the opportunity to acquire an additional asset and create the Home Straight Park Proportionate Ownership Scheme, which is still active today.

Located just off Te Rapa Road in Hamilton, Oyster saw the high quality modern commercial office park as having the property investment fundamentals that would continue to attract quality tenants into the future.

One of the two buildings was leased to farming supplies store RD1, a CityFitness gym and a café, while the other building was leased to the Ministry of Education. Opposite the Oyster-owned buildings was Bunnings.

“Home Straight struck us as a really solid business park,” Oyster’s General Manager – Investment, Steven Harris said. “We knew that Te Rapa was a growth area, and we were excited by the investment’s potential.”

In the years following the 2016 purchase, Oyster saw capital growth across all office types in the Hamilton market, supported by steady rental growth and firming yields.

When the opportunity to acquire a newly built office and retail asset within the same business park came up, the team acted quickly.

“The vendor we bought 17 and 19 Home Straight from kept hold of some of the land and executed a development for another government department,” Harris said. “The three-level commercial building was comprised of two levels of office, with ground floor retail. The chance to add it to our suite of assets was one we couldn’t pass up.”

In May 2020, the team restructured the Scheme to acquire the new building.

Investors in the original scheme received the capital from the sale of what they already owned – the sum of the capital growth was $4,332,799, and the total return 69.5 per cent. The new investment opportunity, Home Straight Park Proportionate Ownership Scheme, opened to investors later that year.

With their capital in hand, it was up to the original Home Straight investors whether they wanted to reinvest in the new fund. In what Harris described as a significant vote of confidence, many of them did.

“We put a lot of thought into our divestment and acquisition plans, and always keep the best interests of our investors top of mind.

“By delivering significant returns to our initial investors, the divestment of 17 and 19 Home Straight could have marked the end of their investment journey with us.

“We were really happy to see a number of investors reinvest their capital in our new fund – more than 80 per cent of the original interests were reinvested. To us, this demonstrates investors’ high level of satisfaction with how we diligently manage their investments.”