Viva Industrial Trust declines opportunity to buy Ho Lee Group's Ang Mo Kio property

THE managers of Viva Industrial Trust (VIT) have declined Ho Lee Group's (HLG) offer for it to buy the latter's property at 7000 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 for S$300 million.

The offer had been made because Viva Industrial Reit (VI-Reit) has first right of refusal on the property, and HLG has received an offer from an unrelated third party to buy it for S$300 million.

VIT is a stapled group made up of VI-Reit and Viva Industrial Business Trust.

The property in question is made up of a seven-storey production block and five-storey office block, with a gross floor area of 1,069,392 square feet.

"The managers have considered the offer and are of the view that the acquisition of the Ang Mo Kio property would not be in the best interests of VIT given that a major equity fund raising exercise would be required to partially finance the acquisition of the Ang Mo Kio property in order for VI-Reit to maintain its gearing ratio at the current level," the trust's managers said in a filing to the Singapore Exchange on Monday.

"The acquisition of the Ang Mo Kio property would not be accretive to the distribution per stapled security of VIT if the managers were to undertake such a major equity fund raising exercise."

VIT units closed unchanged at 94 Singapore cents on Monday, before the announcement was made.