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BRB Puts trust in shopping centre

GOLD COAST BULLETIN - Friday 26 November, 2004

Four Gold Coast businessmen are on their way to setting up a successful boutique funds management company after launching their second property trust.

BRB Capital, spearheaded by Chris Kite and Guy Hasenkam, is looking to raise $3.6 million for a leveraged trust to own an $8.1 million commercial property in Cleveland in Brisbane.

Mr Kite and Mr Hasenkam have teamed up with developer Bruce Barclay and accountant John Scwhartz to operate the company, which successfully launched its maiden product - the BRB Mezzanine Fund No. 5 in September.

Mr Kite said they hoped to replicate the success of other Gold Coast fund managers such as City Pacific.

"(City Pacific) are a really good model of where we want to be," said Mr Kite

"I think they are now the ninth largest company in Queensland."

BRB Capital is now looking for investors to become part owners of a 2036sqm shopping centre in Shore Street West, Cleveland.

The complex, on a 5045sqm site is 100 per cent tenanted, with the leases averaging five years.

The tenants include national businesses including Red Rooster, Blockbuster Video, Domino's Pizza and Gardian Pharmacy.

BRB Capital is forecasting a 9 per cent return in the first for investors in the Cleveland Property Trust.

That is expected to rise to 9.35 per cent by the third year.

Mr Hasenkam, BRB Capital's managing director, started Advance Bank commercial lending offices on the Gold Coast and Brisbane in the late '80s.

Mr Kite was previously regional manager for development finance for Suncorp Metway for 10 years.

Mr Hasenkam said BRB Capital's mezzanine funding operations were intended to provide an option for investors willing to take a higher level of risk in return for a higher return.

Projects with which Mr Hasenkam was involved during his 1987-1997 period with Advance included the Raptis Plaza, Forum and Paradise Avenue retail-commercial properties in Surfers Paradise and infrastructure around the Robina Town Centre.

Mr Kite's Suncopr Metway role, which started on the Gold Coast in the early '90s, led him to arrange funding for projects such as The Moroccan, Mediteranean and Phoenician towers, and the Diamond Beach and Diamond Sands resorts at Broadbeach.

Mr Hasenkam says BRB Capital, which has been licensed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, is intended to tap into a developer demand for mezzanine, or second mortgage, funding from a regulated lender.