Bid for Croesus: Is Blackstone buying into a retail boom in Japan?

WHAT value did private equity giant Blackstone see in Japanese mall owner Croesus Retail Trust (CRT) to warrant its buyout offer at a price that far exceeded brokerages' 12-month targets ranging from S$1.08 to as low as S$0.98?

Furthermore, Blackstone took a risk, making an offer when it had no prior stake in the trust and therefore having to build its stake up from scratch.

There had to be a bigger value or potential that Blackstone saw in CRT for it to be willing to fork out the hefty price of S$1.17 per unit, or more than S$900 million in total for the trust.