Acquiring Asia Square Tower 2 makes sense for CapitaLand Group

PROPERTY giant CapitaLand has been in exclusive due diligence with a view to buying Asia Square Tower 2 in Marina View from a BlackRock-managed fund. Word has it that the pricing is around S$2,800 per square foot (psf) on the net lettable area of about 780,000 sq ft.

Office market watchers will recall that CapitaLand was among the bidders for the next door Tower 1 back in 2015 but later walked out of discussions. BlackRock eventually sold Tower 1 in June last year to Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) for S$3.38 billion or about S$2,700 psf on net lettable area (NLA) of over 1.25 million sq ft. In absolute price quantum, this was the biggest ever office deal in Singapore.

The question is: Why is CapitaLand, which chose not to buy Tower 1, now pursuing Tower 2 - and…