Sasseur Reit plans up to S$600 million IPO in March

SASSEUR Group, a Shanghai-based developer and operator of outlet malls which last year pushed back plans for a Reit listing here, has begun gauging investor interest again with plans to list Sasseur Reit in March.

The initial public offering (IPO) could raise between S$500 million to S$600 million and Sasseur Reit would have a market cap of S$1 billion upon its debut, according to terms obtained by The Business Times.

Based on the latest indicative timeline, the IPO prospectus will be lodged on March 1, ahead of the listing on March 29.

The Reit promises an indicative yield of 7 per cent in 2018 and mid-7 per cent in 2019, and would be the first outlet mall Reit to be listed on the Singapore Exchange.

Sasseur Reit's IPO portfolio will comprise four retail outlet malls in China valued at about S$1.5 billion, it said last year.

The Sasseur group runs nine outlet malls in eight major Chinese cities with an overall construction area of over 2.5 million square metres. Eight of the malls are already open to the public with a leasing rate of over 95 per cent, according to Sasseur's website.

The malls slated to be injected into the Reit are located in Chongqing, Bishan, Hefei and Kunming.

The Reit sponsor is Sasseur Cayman Holding, which counts Ping An Real Estate, an affiliate of Ping An Insurance, as a backer.

L Capital Asia, the private equity arm of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, invested more than US$100 million in Sasseur Cayman Holding in 2015. Warburg Pincus also invested an undisclosed sum in Sasseur that year, following on from an initial investment in 2011.

DBS, Bank of China, Citibank and Maybank Kim Eng are the joint bookrunners for the IPO.