Firm snaps up Gold Coast marina and shipyard
In a move to strengthen its national marina platform, a Sydney-based asset management firm says buying the Gold Coast marina and shipyard would help it enter the super yacht market.
Sydney-based asset management firm MA Financial said it wanted to strengthen its national marina platform in buying the Gold Coast City Marina and Shipyard.
As one of Australia’s most substantial marine-industrial facilities, the Gold Coast City Marina and Shipyard is located within the Coomera marine precinct and is seen among one of the country’s most established marine industry clusters.
It has a concentration of marine trades, large-format operational infrastructure and the capacity to support significant vessel maintenance and activity.
MA Financial’s head of asset management Brad Couper said the acquisition aligned with the firm’s strategy of targeting high-quality assets that will benefit from long-term structural tailwinds in the marine sector.
“Certainly for us, it expands our capability and diversifies our alternative asset management and hospitality funds platform,” Couper said.
Couper added that opportunities of this scale were hard to come by in terms of how often they trade.
“The Gold Coast City Marina is firmly in the sweet spot of our alternative investment strategy and supports our entrance into the international super yacht market.”
He also said it would deepen MA Financial’s marina network and portfolio, which included d’Albora sites across the country.
MA Financial acquired d’Albora, Australia’s largest marina network, in April 2023 for $225 million, and launched the MA Marina Fund to hold the assets.
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D’Albora Queensland sites include Pacific Point Marina in Jacobs Well, Port of Airlie Marina in Airlie Beach, Tin Can Bay Marina, East Coast Marina in Moreton Bay and more across both New South Wales and Victoria.
Couper noted that the industry was now seeing interest from investors, and the strategic role that scale would play in delivering returns over the long term.
“Marinas represent an important component of our broader real estate strategy, and we have been pleased with the performance of the assets acquired to date,” Couper said.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Morgan Ruig and Jonathon O’Brien negotiated the sale, noting the recent spike in interest of specialised industrial landholdings, which is driven by scarcity, zoning constraints and growing institutional appetite for operationally rich assets.
“Capital targeting specialised industrial and marine infrastructure has deepened dramatically. Demand is consistently outweighing supply, and large‑scale waterfront industrial assets like this almost never hit the market,” they said.
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