EMBATTLED development company CEC Group has sold its Spence St depot in Portsmith in another effort to reduce debt. 
 

A West Australian syndicate bought the property for about $15 million.

CEC will continue to operate from the depot, however, signing a 10-year occupancy lease with the new owners.

CEC chief executive Roy Lavis said the deal was part of the company's effort to cut bank debt by selling non-core assets.

"There was a strategy for a number of sales to get down to the )debt) level we want," he told The Cairns Post.

"It wasn't earning us any money and this means we won't be paying any interest on it."

The sale comes at a time when CEC is pushing to reduce debt to less than $95 million by July 1.

Colliers International sales executive Stuart Carr said the property settled late last month, with the deal agreed in March.

"We had a buyer within 12 hours of taking it on," he said.

"It is basically a very good commercial property.''

Representatives of the West Australian syndicate had been property hunting in Cairns and stumbled on the CEC depot by chance.

Mr Carr said the property was a great buy because of the shortage of commercial land in Cairns.

Being on three titles meant the property could be divided and sold.

He said the sale showed the commercial property market was strong, even as residential property values fell.

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