Manulife US Reit completes acquisition of 500 Plaza Drive in New Jersey

MANULIFE US Reit announced on Thursday that it has completed its maiden acquisition of 500 Plaza Drive in the United States, with the real estate investment trust's (Reit) total portfolio valuation now standing at US$950.2 million.

The 11-storey freehold office building's occupancy is 98.9 per cent, and has a long weighted average lease expiry of 9.2 years based on committed leases as at March 31, 2017. It occupies 461,525 sq ft of net lettable area.

The acquisition of the building was partly funded by a private placement of 97,003,000 new units in Manulife US Reit at an issue price of US$0.83 per new unit, a 3.5 per cent discount to the adjusted volume weighted average price of US$0.8597 per unit.

The Reit said that demand was dominated by long-only institutional investors, which took up over three-quarters of the private placement, with the balance placed to private wealth clients and multi-strategy funds.

With the issue and listing of the new units, Manulife US Reit had a total number of 728,368,359 units and a market capitalisation of US$670.1 million as at July 19, 2017.

Post completion, Plaza's contribution will be reflected in the Reit's financial results for the quarter ending Sept 30, 2017.