A-Reit to raise S$408m of equity at the low end of its price range

ASCENDAS Real Estate Investment Trust (A-Reit) has priced its S$408 million equity fund-raising exercise at the cheap end of the price talk, the industrial and commercial property trust announced on Thursday.

A-Reit will sell 90 million of new units to institutional and other investors through a S$200.1 million private placement at S$2.223 per unit, the low end of the S$2.223 to S$2.290 range used during book building. The placement price represents a 6.2 per cent discount to A-Reit's volume-weighted average trading price of S$2.3706 on Dec 8.

A-Reit will also offer existing unitholders new units at S$2.218 apiece, or five Singapore cents below the placement price, on the basis of three new units for every 80 held. The rights offering will raise at least S$207.9 million.

A further S$0.4 million of units could be issued to the manager as fees.

About S$224.7 million of the proceeds will be used to help pay for the planned S$420 million acquisition of One@Changi City; another S$82 million will be used to help pay for a potential acquisition of a logistics property in Australia that has yet to be confirmed; about S$98.8 million will be used to repay debt and fund future acquisitions; and the remaining S$2.8 million will be used for fees and expenses.

A-Reit will also issue S$210 million of new units to Ascendas Frasers Pte Ltd, the vendor of One@Changi City, as consideration for the acquisition.

Ascendas Frasers is an equally owned joint venture between Frasers Centrepoint and A-Reit controlling unitholder Ascendas Pte Ltd.