ISPT offloads Blue Mountains shopping centre for $34.8m
ISPT, which recently became a subsidiary of global institutional investor and asset manager IFM Investors, purchased Katoomba Village in Katoomba from Coles Group. It initially acquired a 75 per cent stake in the shopping centre in 2013 for around $24 million, before purchasing the remaining 25 per cent in late 2016 for about $8.65 million.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

ABC News
21 minutes ago
- ABC News
Walkley Award-winning ABC journalist Peter Ryan dies, leaving 'significant legacy'
Former ABC journalist and Walkley Award-winner Peter Ryan OAM has died aged 64 in Sydney, his family has confirmed. Ryan retired from the ABC in June after 45 years in the industry, as he moved into palliative care. He had metastatic thyroid cancer, first diagnosed in 2014, and wanted to focus on his wife Mary Cotter, daughter Charlotte, and other family and friends. Ryan's many career highlights included being the ABC's Washington bureau chief, head of TV news and current affairs in Victoria, executive producer of Business Breakfast, founding editor of Lateline Business, which later became The Business, and the ABC's business editor. He was a senior business correspondent from 2016 until he retired. ABC News director Justin Stevens said Peter left a "significant legacy." "Through his mentorship, friendship, and professionalism, he directly touched the lives of many at the ABC," he said. "Through his journalism, he had a profound impact on the lives of Australians and our society. It was a privilege to know him and work alongside him." In 2017, Ryan won a Walkley award for his exposé on the Commonwealth Bank scandal. His coverage contributed to the calling of the banking royal commission, and in 2018, he was the National Press Club finance journalist of the year for his coverage of the commission. Ryan began his career as a copyboy and cadet on Sydney's Daily Mirror before he joined the ABC and took on foreign correspondent, senior manager, and executive producer roles. In 2022, he was recognised with the Order of Australia medal for his significant service to journalism. When Ryan retired, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said: "Peter Ryan is an absolute legend. Every day as you wake up and you think about what's happening in the economy, if you only needed to listen to one voice to be sure that you got its essential elements, it would be Peter's." When he left the ABC, Ryan wrote a note for "younger and older colleagues alike". He ended with "a few words of editorial advice": "A good team can often be a very small team — I've worked in some of the best. "Be proactive — come to the table with a great story so no one else comes up with a dud that might waste your time. "Work closely with top people — shut up and absorb like a sponge. "Maintain a fastidious contact book — some low-profile contacts could soon move into higher-powered roles or, more importantly, work in backrooms where the big decisions are often made. "Show up to work early and prove that you're ready to take on the big story of the day. Try to have a Plan B in your back pocket just in case your original brilliant idea doesn't go anywhere and the EP comes walking your way.

ABC News
21 minutes ago
- ABC News
Illicit tobacco is 'out in the open' but what is the best way to deal with it?
Jon Jon Jensen says tobacconists selling black market cigarettes are easy to find. The 58-year-old from country Victoria has been smoking for about 45 years and turned to under-the-counter cigarettes six years ago. "I just found they are so readily available, I can get them almost anywhere," says. He is one of the many Australians buying illicit tobacco — a trade that has been expanding over recent years. In 2023, it was estimated that illegal tobacco consumption may account for close to 30 per cent of the total tobacco market in Australia, although these estimates by the legal tobacco industry are disputed. And despite sectors of government agreeing Australia has a problem with the illegal trade, there's mixed messaging about how to tackle the problem. Unlike a pack of legal cigarettes, which costs about $40 for 20, Mr Jensen buys a box of 100 cigarettes once a week, which he says costs him $30. "Everyone I know who smokes is buying illicit tobacco, because of the price," he says. The difference in price between the products is because of the tax excise that is added to legal cigarettes, which can be up to 70 per cent of the total retail price. University of Sydney public health professor Becky Freeman says, despite having some of the lowest smoking rates our country has seen, we are seeing illegal tobacconists "popping up everywhere" because "cigarettes are so incredibly profitable". The current revenue for the government from tobacco excise sits at about $7.4 billion — a drop from $12.6 billion in 2022-2023 and $16.3 billion in 2019-2020. During a press conference last month, federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers said there were two reasons for the decline. "The good reason is fewer people smoking, the bad reason is we know that we've got a challenge when it comes to illegal tobacco," he says. While he has ruled out lowering the tax excise on cigarettes, which will rise again in September, NSW Premier Chris Minns has a different view. "[The cost is] pushing regular law-abiding citizens into an illicit black market, where they are forced to buy cigarettes for $20 or $17, compared to $60 or $80," he said during Parliament in June. He also argued the government did not have enough resources to crack down on the illicit trade as it currently stands. "At the end of the day, we have to make a decision about what the best use of police resources are or health resources are," he said. Professor Freeman worries if the government was to lower the tobacco excise, it would be sending the wrong message. "The only thing you would be doing is rewarding the very retailers who had flouted the law by allowing them to legally sell cheap cigarettes," she says. She argues that, if the government was to lower the tax excise, it would essentially have to remove it altogether to "compete with the illicit market". "My concern with getting rid of the tobacco tax essentially is we would make smoking more appealing to more people and we'd be undermining all the public health gains we have made," she says. There are more effective ways Ms Freeman says the government can use to target the illegal trade. "If we really want to tackle the illicit market, to me it's about managing the supply of products … cigarettes are sold everywhere in any kind of retailer you can imagine. "If you want to be able to enforce illicit tobacco, the number one thing you should be doing is reducing the number of outlets that sell it." But Fei Gao from the University of Sydney Business School believes that while a range of steps are necessary to tackle the black market, one of them is lowering the excise. "When something is so expensive from the legal market, the illicit market will grow," Dr Gao says. She says lowering the excise is an "important step because if that gap can't be closed, any effort the government takes or makes will be wasted". But she says determining the amount will require collaboration. "During all these years, we haven't done any policy review on tobacco excise, so I think we need to gather a bunch of experts, such as tax experts [and] economists," she says. "We need to sit together, talk about this topic and we need to price in all relevant factors such as the growing illicit tobacco market, the replacements such as vapes [and] the ever-changing smoking rate." This month, NSW and Victoria were the last two states to introduce tobacco licensing laws, which mean businesses in NSW have until the start of October to apply for a licence that allows them to sell cigarettes. For Victoria, it's February next year. But Professor Freeman says legislation has to go further. "Immediately shut down shops that you find selling, to issue massive fines not only to the business owner but to the landlord who owns that property and leases out that building," she says. "And then finally you should be using this licensing scheme to reduce the number of outlets." Mr Jensen says he went from smoking up to 90 cigarettes a day, down to less than 20. He wants to quit, but says the nicotine replacements are "too expensive". "I just wish the excise they do collect on cigarettes would be subsidising nicotine replacement therapy because this nicotine replacement therapy is expensive. "I don't particularly want to give up nicotine, I'd love to give up the cigarettes, but I can't afford the nicotine replacement therapy that goes with it." Mr Jensen says a box of 20 inhalers costs about $40. He says his cheapest option is turning to the black market. Federal Health Minister Mark Butler didn't answer questions from the ABC about whether he'd consider subsidising the cost of nicotine replacement therapy. The Albanese government introduced the Illicit Tobacco and E-Cigarette Commissioner (ITEC) role on July 1, 2024 to "coordinate national efforts to combat the threat of illicit tobacco and e-cigarettes to the Australian community". In a statement to the ABC, the ITEC said: 'Criminal networks don't stop at borders, and neither should the response. The ITEC continues to work with all levels of government to coordinate national policies, and support enforcement efforts across jurisdictions to drive these illicit actors out of business." As for Mr Jensen, he says he'll continue to smoke illicit tobacco until the price of inhalers drops. "If they're serious about getting us to quit smoking, make quit-smoking products cheaper."

Sydney Morning Herald
21 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
As suitors circle Healthscope, its management mulls a different path
The sales process for Healthscope's failed private hospital business kicks off in earnest this Monday with up to 30 potential suitors due to file their tentative offers for its 37 Australian hospitals, employing 19,000 staff nationally. But the non-binding offers won't include a bid from Healthscope's current management, who are contemplating a scheme to convert the company into a not-for-profit entity. It would mirror the resurrection of Australia's largest child care provider Goodstart Early learning, from the ashes of the collapsed ABC Learning empire, as a not-for-profit provider. Healthscope insiders have confirmed reports in the Australian Financial Review last week that its chief executive, Tino La Spina, is working on the plan as an alternative to a sale of the business to either commercial interests or other Australian not-for-profit operators like St Vincent's Health Australia. Healthscope declined to comment. People with knowledge of the proposal, who are not authorised to discuss the matter, confirmed that the plans are not advanced enough to put in a non-binding indicative offer by the Monday, July 21 deadline. But La Spina's team have been consulting with the receivers from McGrathNicol who are managing the sale, with a view to putting in a proposal during the second stage of the sales process where interested parties are expected to lodge binding offers for the business. This includes local not-for-profit operators, ASX-listed Ramsay Health Care, privately owned Healthe Care and a potential debt-for-equity swap that could see lenders like UK-based Polus Capital take control. The receivers are acting for lenders which are owed $1.7 billion, according to documents lodged with the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Australia's Big Four banks are among the lenders which will be hit with significant losses as the sales price is not expected to get anywhere near what is owed to them. The debt includes $52 million owed to the former owner, Canadian financial giant, Brookfield, which had $2 billion in equity wiped out when the group collapsed into administration earlier this year.