The Hannan family is finally packing up its Sydney Corporate Park site in Alexandria after almost 30 years at that location following the commissioning of Hannanprint’s new Warwick Farm print production facility earlier this year.
In fact, Hannan family businesses have been in that area of Sydney for well over 40 years. However, since the IPMG subsidiary completed its relocation to Warwick Farm’s state-of-the-art super site this year the $400 million Corporate Park in Alexandria is seeing the exit of print and the possible entry of new developers.
According to sources, the Hannan family may sell the approximately 143,000 square metre site, restructure its holdings, or remain in a venture with the property. It has appointed Brookfield Financial to advise its next step for the site.
Hannan first purchased parts of Sydney Corporate Park in 1985 as a headquarters for its NSW operations of Hannanprint. Since that time Sydney Corporate Park has been further expanded through other purchases and extensive development.
Sydney Corporate Park is one of the largest consolidated privately-held land ownerships in the City of Sydney Council area. It was awarded Best Business Park in Australia in 2012 by the Property Council of Australia.
“With the relocation of Hannanprint to Warwick Farm we now have a wonderful development opportunity on the Northern boundaries of Sydney Corporate Park,” said Michael Hannan, executive chairman of IPMG. “We will continue to be an investor in quality commercial property and, whilst recognising the inevitable need for rationalisation in the heat set printing industry, we intend to remain a long-term investor in the printing business.
“Whilst our preference has always been to own and develop our commercial property assets within family-owned entities, the time has come to accept that with the funds required to develop Sydney Corporate Park to its full potential, and for us to play a pivotal role in addressing the required rationalisation to assist us meet all our objectives in a shorter timeframe than would be possible if we were to do it all ourselves as a private family group,” he said.
For Kevin Slaven, IPMG CEO, Sydney Corporate Park continues to represent a sound investment to help enable the company to negotiate the choppy waters of the local printing industry with a relative amount of financial safety.
“The printing industry is clearly going through tough times and there is a significant amount of old equipment and overcapacity in the market,” he said. “IPMG is a privately owned diverse group of print, media and marketing services companies with the backing of significant property assets through the Hannan family ownership of Sydney Corporate Park.
“We are uniquely positioned to be able to weather the issues facing the printing industry and come out on the other side in an even stronger position than we are in today. IPMG is fortunate to have the backing and financial support of the Hannan family to be able to navigate through this evolutionary phase of its printing investments as well as to have the opportunity to diversify the group’s portfolio of investments in quality media and marketing services,” he said.