Oxford Properties Group has acquired Investa Office Fund’s 5.3 million sq. ft portfolio in Australia valued at approximately $4.4 billion.

The global real estate investment, development and management company based in Toronto, Canada purchased 19 prime office assets across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra on Dec. 14, 2018.

“Completing this transaction in just 100 days is a testament to our team’s ability to rapidly execute large-scale and complex transactions in markets across the globe. We are also very pleased to have begun establishing our presence in Australia and are in the process of building our team on the ground,” said Paul Brundage, Oxford’s Head of Europe and Asia Pacific.

Oxford also announced it has renamed the ownership vehicle for the portfolio to Oxford Investa Property Partners (OIPP). Alongside Oxford’s role as strategic asset manager, Oxford has retained the Investa Office Management platform (Investa) to continue its role managing the portfolio, providing investment, asset, property, project and development management services.

“We look forward to working closely with Oxford as the new owner of OIPP and in its role as strategic asset manager to the portfolio. We have had a very positive experience getting to know the Oxford team and are pleased with the strong synergies between our two businesses. As manager of the OIPP portfolio, we’re very well placed to continue to deliver strong performance from the assets together with Oxford,” said Jonathan Callaghan, Chief Executive Officer, Investa.

Oxford is the real estate arm of OMERS, one of Canada’s largest pension plans. This transaction represents the second major investment in Australia for OMERS following the 50-year lease of the Port of Melbourne as part of the Lonsdale Consortium in 2016.