Source : The Business Times, August 18, 2007
TOKYO-BASED Asia Pacific Land Group is looking to raise at least S$500 million through listing a real estate investment trust (Reit) in Singapore, banking sources said yesterday.
Asia Pacific Land is said to have hired JPMorgan and Lehman Bros for the initial public offering, which would be the first Singapore-listed property trust by a Japanese company.
Sources said the privately held company, which has US$1.5 billion of assets under management, wants to divest some of its Japanese retail and office properties into the property trust.
'It's not just about listing a portfolio of properties, but about creating a regional fund management platform in Singapore,' said one source familiar with the deal. Asia Pacific Land declined to comment.
Bankers say Singapore's Reit market - the third largest in Asia-Pacific after Australia and Japan - could be attractive to Japanese firms seeking to divest foreign assets via property trusts.
Japanese real estate funds manager Re-plus Inc is said to be in talks with Citigroup to list a Singapore property trust based on its office building assets in China.
Unlike Singapore Reits, which have foreign assets ranging from shopping malls in China to hospitals in Indonesia, Japanese-listed Reits are not allowed to hold offshore assets. -- Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment