United Hampshire US Reit makes tepid debut at US$0.72 on SGX

UNITED Hampshire US Reit, the first retail real estate investment trust (Reit) with US exposure here, opened for trading on the Singapore Exchange's (SGX) mainboard at US$0.72 apiece, 10 per cent lower from its initial public offering price.

The counter's latest trading price as at 2.04pm is US$0.71, with some 1.6 million shares changing hands.

Through its listing, the Reit looked to raise gross proceeds of about US$394.6 million by offering units at US$0.80, or S$1.12, each. This represents a yield of 7.4 per cent for the March-to-December period of 2020 and 7.6 per cent for 2021. Investors can choose to receive their distributions in US or Singapore dollars.

United Hampshire US Reit will be Asia's first US grocery-anchored shopping centre and self-storage Reit. There is no current retail Reit with US exposure in the Singapore Reit sector for comparison, but the US office Reits have forward yields ranging from 6.4 per cent to 8.4 per cent

The Reit disclosed on Wednesday night that the Singapore public offer attracted 848 valid applications for 10.3 million units, while 7.5 million units were available to the public for subscription. This represented a subscription rate of 1.4 times.

Meanwhile, the Reit's international placement of 80.3 million units to investors outside the US drew indications of interest in excess of US$220.1 million or around 3.4 times the value of the placement tranche available for subscription.

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Based on the 87.8 million units available in total, the offering saw a subscription rate of 3.2 times.

The cornerstone investors include Kuang Ming Investments, an investment holding firm privately owned by Philip Ng and family; mutual fund management company Kasikorn Asset Management; director of Wing Tai Property Management Helen Chow; founders of Malaysia-listed piling and foundation firm Pintaras Jaya, Chiu Hong Keong and Khoo Yok Kee; and Bangkok Life Assurance.

Sponsors UOB Global Capital, which is the asset management subsidiary of United Overseas Bank, and American real estate manager The Hampshire Companies will each own a 9 per cent stake in the Reit.

The listing of United Hampshire US Reit brings the total number of SGX-listed Reits and property trusts to 45, with a combined market capitalisation of about S$109 billion, the SGX said on Thursday.

Together with real estate companies, the overall real estate cluster has a combined market capitalisation of over S$187 billion, the bourse added.