Sasseur Reit cornerstone investors include JD.com and YCH boss

It will be the first outlet mall Reit to be listed in Asia with an initial portfolio comprising outlet malls located in China

Singapore

E-COMMERCE giant JD.com, Singapore's CKK Holdings which owns the the Charles & Keith group of companies, and Entrepolis, a private investment firm of Robert Yap, the executive chairman of local logistics firm YCH Group, are among the cornerstone investors of Sasseur Reit.

The trust's preliminary prospectus, lodged on Wednesday, contained no information on pricing or issuance size, but an earlier report in The Business Times, citing a term sheet it had seen, said the initial public offering (IPO) could raise between S$500 million and S$600 million, and Sasseur Reit would have a market cap of S$1 billion upon its debut.

BT also reported that the Reit promises an indicative yield of 7 per cent in 2018, and mid-7 per cent in 2019. The listing could also be slated for March 29.

In its prospectus on Wednesday, the sponsor said: "Sasseur Reit is the first outlet mall Reit to be listed in Asia with an initial portfolio comprising outlet malls located in the PRC.

"Unlike traditional retailing formats such as department stores and shopping malls, sales through outlet malls in the PRC are experiencing strong growth. Because of the strong growth momentum, the PRC's outlet sector is expected to become the world's largest outlet market by 2030."

This comes as consumption is being fuelled by the growing middle class population in China. Outlet malls also tend to exhibit counter-cyclical characteristics and resilience during economic recessions, it said.

The four properties in its initial portfolio are namely Sasseur (Chongqing) Outlets, Sasseur (Bishan) Outlets also in Chongqing, Sasseur (Hefei) Outlets and Sasseur (Kunming) Outlets. They have an average occupancy rate of 95.1 per cent.

Their net lettable area totals 304,573 sq m and the malls have a total appraised value of about 7.34 billion yuan (S$1.5 billion).

The sponsor, Sasseur Cayman Holding, is a privately-owned outlet mall operator in China which counts L Catterton Asia Advisors (formerly L Capital Asia Advisors) and Pingan Real Estate as strategic shareholders.

In addition, the Reit also has two right of first refusal (ROFR) properties that it can acquire from the sponsor after they are operational and have reached a certain level of stability. There are also three pipeline properties which the sponsor has been granted an ROFR or option to acquire.

"Assuming Sasseur Reit acquires the full interest in the ROFR properties and the pipeline properties, the aggregate gross floor area (GFA) of the initial portfolio will expand by approximately 0.7 million sq m, almost tripling the total GFA of the initial portfolio," the prospectus said.

While it gave no information of the allocation of units to different classes of investors, it gave a detailed list of the 12 cornerstone investors.

They include JD.com subsidiary Adroit Ideology, Bangkok Life Assurance, CKK Holdings, YCH unit Entrepolis, a subsidiary of Haitong International Securities Group (Singapore), a subsidiary of L Capital Asia 2, online branded product platform Secoo Holding, Thailand's TMB Asset Management, DBS Bank as well as customers represented by Credit Suisse AG and DBS Vickers Securities.

DBS Bank, Bank of China, China International Capital Corporation (Singapore), Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Haitong International Securities (Singapore) and Maybank Kim Eng are the joint bookrunners and underwriters for the IPO.

The sponsor is likely to begin conducting roadshows with institutional investors starting this week.

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