PRIVATE developer Pivot Group Pty Ltd has signed a strategic alliance with Axiom Properties Ltd, which will provide Axiom with the first right to acquire each Pivot development project throughout Australia over the next three years.
The deal was a validation of the promise of Pivot Group chairman, Peter Laurance, to give Axiom shareholders first right of refusal on Pivot projects, made during a seven-month battle with Macquarie Bank to take control of Axiom ending in October last year.
In a letter to the Australian Stock Exchange on Sept-ember 29, Axiom executive director Ben Laurance said the commitment by Pivot would greatly assist Axiom to become a diversified commercial property investor.
“The three-year time frame will give us the opportunity to establish our own skill-base and reputation in the Australian property market,” he said.
“Pivot’s development book is likely to be beyond Axiom’s current financial capability; but other successful development companies have proposed entering into alliances with Axiom, and Axiom would intend using these alliance to finance any Pivot projects that are too big for Axiom’s resources.”
Axiom is already entitled to 50 per cent of the net profit in Pivot’s joint venture project with Industry Superannuation Property Trust in developing the office component of their $310 million Century City project, at 100 St Georges Terrace, after Axiom’s equity contribution of $5 million in June.
