IPMG has drawn a line under its move to Warwick Farm with the $343 million sale of its former Alexandria real estate.
The Hannan family announced the sale of the Sydney Corporate Park to Goodman Australia Industrial this afternoon. The 22-acre former British Oxygen site first provided accommodation for Hannanprint, the family’s Eastern Suburbs Newspapers partnership and Federal Publishing – both since sold – and has been progressively developed since its acquisition in 1985.
At the same time, growth of the Sydney suburb – positioned between the airport and CBD – has seen dominant use move from industrial to commercial, retail and residential with an accompanying increase in real estate values.
An IPMG statement says the group – which owns the freehold of its four other print sites – is now debt free with a strong balance sheet.
Hannanprint completed the move of its Sydney heatset web operations to Warwick Farm in Sydney’s south western suburbs, this year. The project, which took five years from concept to completion, was originally to have been based on gravure, rather than web-offset, production technology.
“The property divestment by the Hannan family takes advantage of strong demand for quality industrial and commercial property and importantly the sale facilitates the process of generational change for a private family-owned enterprise that has recently celebrated its 125th anniversary,” says a statement. “The sale also provides the catalyst for the fifth generation members already working in the business, as well as those still to join the business, to be able to influence the direction of the group in the future.”
It says IPMG “remains committed” to being a significant property investor and will pursue new opportunities. It will continue to develop investments in digital marketing and printing.
Claiming to be “the best resourced participant” in the print industry, it says it has ambitions to influence “structural change and rationalisation” to deal with overcapacity and inefficiency of an industry “until now reluctant to deal with older, less efficient plant and machinery”.
The business’s origins go back to 1887, when 23-year-old Irish immigrant Francis Hannan launched what was to become a chain of butchery businesses and an extensive property portfolio. Frank Hannan established the Randwick District News in 1934, taking the family into publishing, with the move into heatset printing following in 1981.
Pictured: The Sydney Corporate Park, looking south