Manulife US Reit placement oversubscribed, gross proceeds up to US$80.5m

MANULIFE US Real Estate Management, the manager of Manulife US Real Estate Investment Trust (Manulife US Reit), announced on Tuesday that its private placement of 73.6 million new units in Manulife US Reit was "well over-subscribed with strong participation from new and existing institutional investors".

It added that the issue price for these new units has been fixed at US$0.83 per unit. This represents a discount of 6.9 per cent to the volume weighted average price of US$0.8917 per unit for trades done on Monday, when the placement agreement was entered into.

The strong interest from investors also led to the upsize option for the placement being exercised. A total of 97.003 million new units will be issued, increasing the gross proceeds of the placement to US$80.5 million, from US$60.1 million.

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