Macquarie Office Trust to acquire a prime Sydney CBD asset

22 December 2003

Macquarie Office Trust (ASX: MOF) announced today it has exchanged contracts to acquire a 50 per cent interest in the Allianz Centre, a prime Sydney CBD office tower at 2 Market Street for $111.75 million. The remaining 50 per cent is owned by Allianz Australia, who is also the major tenant.

The Allianz Centre is a 24 level, A Grade Building completed in 1990 comprising 34,957 square metres and 301 car spaces and is being acquired on a 7.5 per cent yield (before costs). The property offers a quality tenant profile, excellent outlook and natural light, large floor plates, development opportunity and a competitive yield.

Announcing the acquisition, Chief Executive Officer of Macquarie Office Trust, Simon Jones, said: "This property offers very strong fundamentals and will increase the Trust's weighting to the Sydney CBD office market."

"There have been few opportunities to acquire prime Sydney CBD properties so we are delighted to be able to add this asset to the Trust's portfolio."

"Three of the Trust's last five acquisitions have been prime Sydney CBD properties and we believe this places the Trust in a strong position to capitalise on any Sydney office market recovery," said Mr Jones.

The vendor is Leda Holdings and the sale was negotiated by David Harrison of FPD Savills and Tom Southern of CB Richard Ellis.

The property fits the Trust's strategy to increase the weighting to the Sydney CBD with quality properties, leased to strong tenants. The property is 79 per cent occupied by major investment grade tenants including Allianz Australia, Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance and Telstra. Overall occupancy is 99 per cent with the vendor providing $0.4 million in income support.

The Allianz Centre offers minimal expiries over the next 3 years and with current office rents below market levels is well positioned to capitalise on improving office fundamentals.

The acquisition will be funded by a combination of underwriting the distribution reinvestment plan, asset sales and borrowings.

Macquarie Office Trust is a Listed Property Trust with contracted assets of $1.8 billion. Macquarie Property and its associates manage over $10 billion in property assets.

For further information please contact 1300 365 585.

Macquarie Office Management Limited (MOML) is not an authorised deposit-taking institution for the purposes of the Banking Act (Cth) 1959, and MOML's obligations do not represent deposits or other liabilities of Macquarie Bank Limited ABN 46 008 583 542 (MBL). MBL provides a limited $5 million guarantee to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in respect of MOML's Corporations Act obligations as a responsible entity of managed investment schemes. MBL does not otherwise provide assurance in respect of the obligations of MOML.