CRCT prices preferential offering at S$1.17 and private placement at S$1.195 per unit

Singapore

CAPITALAND Retail China Trust's (CRCT) preferential offering to unitholders has been priced at S$1.17 each, the bottom end of the indicative range.

That's at an 8.6 per cent discount to Monday's closing price of S$1.28, and a discount of about 9.2 per cent to the volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of S$1.2891 for all trades done on Monday.

Units of CRCT fell on Wednesday after the manager's announcement, losing 3.9 per cent or S$0.05 to finish at S$1.23. About 27.5 million units changed hands during the day.

Trading in the counter had been halted on Tuesday morning, before the equity fundraising was launched, and resumed on Wednesday.

The non-renounceable preferential offering will be done on the basis of 56 new units for every 1,000 existing units held as at Nov 25, 5pm.

The offering of almost 69 million new units will thus raise about S$80.7 million in gross proceeds. It is part of CRCT's equity fundraising launched on Tuesday to partially finance its acquisition of interests in business parks and a Guangzhou mall.

Meanwhile, the private placement was upsized to raise gross proceeds of about S$245.4 million.

The upsized placement was about three times covered, and saw "strong participation" from new and existing institutional and other accredited investors, the manager said.

The placement's issue price was fixed at S$1.195 per new unit, near the lower end of the indicative range of S$1.193 to S$1.236. It is at a 6.6 per cent discount to Monday's close and 7.3 per cent below the VWAP.

A total of 205.3 million new units will be issued under the private placement, including additional ones from the upsize option, raising some S$245.4 million in gross proceeds.

Gross proceeds from both the placement and the offering will amount to about S$326.1 million.

The CRCT manager plans to declare, in respect of the existing units, an advanced distribution for the period from July 1 to the date immediately before the date on which the new placement units are issued.

The new units under the placement are expected to be issued on or around Nov 26.

The quantum of this advanced distribution is estimated to be 2.75 Singapore cents per existing unit, the manager said on Wednesday. The actual quantum may differ and will be announced later.

The CRCT manager said it is proposing the advanced distribution as a means to ensure fairness to holders of the existing units.

The next distribution following the advanced distribution will comprise CRCT's distributable income for the period from the day the new placement units are issued, to Dec 31.Semi-annual distributions will resume thereafter.

Of the equity fundraising's gross proceeds, about S$319.3 million will partially finance the proposed acquisition's total acquisition cost of around S$822.4 million.

Earlier this month, CRCT said it was looking to buy interests in five business park properties in Suzhou, Xian and Hangzhou as well as the remaining 49 per cent stake in the Rock Square mall, at an agreed property value of about 4.95 billion yuan (S$1.01 billion).