CBRE Global Investors has gone Down Under on behalf of a German client, acquiring the South Wharf Tower in Melbourne, Australia. The 225,000-square-foot office building, completed in 2009, represents CBRE Global Investors’ first direct property purchase in Australia.

The transaction shows the continued cross-border attractiveness of Australian property markets, as the property was purchased by CBRE Global Investors and Universal-Investment on behalf of German institutional investor Bayerische Versorgungskammer from Deka-ImmobilienGlobal, an open-end real estate fund sponsored by Germany-based Deka Immobilien Investment.

“German institutional investors are still internationalizing their real estate allocations. The Asia Pacific area is, next to [the] U.S., currently one of the preferred real estate markets abroad,” commented Alexander Tannenbaum, managing director at Universal-Investment in charge of the real estate division, in a statement.