SingPost Appoints CBRE As Consultant For HQ Building

Source : The Business Times, February 7, 2008

SINGAPORE Post is understood to have appointed property firm CB Richard Ellis to advise it on exploring options for the listed group’s headquarters building next to Paya Lebar MRT Station.

CBRE’s appointment followed a beauty parade that SingPost is understood to have conducted late last year to select a property consultant, as reported by BT yesterday.

Property industry sources told BT yesterday that the job was clinched by CBRE, which, however, has declined to comment on its appointment.

In its third-quarter results statement last month, SingPost said that it is ‘continuing to review its non- core businesses, and is also exploring opportunities in respect of SingPost Centre, including unlocking the value of SingPost Centre’.

Analysts have estimated the building’s value at around $1,000 to $1,300 per square foot of existing net lettable area, assuming full-commercial use, which would reflect a total quantum of between $1 billion and $1.3 billion. The 14-storey building is on a 352,389 sq ft site, with a remaining lease of about 73 years. It has a total net lettable area of about 1 million sq ft, of which about half is currently occupied by SingPost for its corporate office and operations including the mail processing centre.

The rest of the property is leased to a mix of office and retail tenants including HSBC Insurance, NorthWest Airlines, Symantec Corporation, Prudential (whose lease expires this year), This Fashion, Barang Barang, NTUC FairPrice and Kopitiam.