Stocks to watch: A-Reit, Olam, CapitaLand Mall Trust, CDL

ASCENDAS Real Estate Investment Trust (A-Reit): The industrial and commercial property trust has priced its S$408 million equity fund-raising exercise at the cheap end of price talk, it announced on Thursday before the market opened.

A-Reit will sell 90 million of new units to institutional and other investors through a S$200.1 million private placement at S$2.223 per unit, the low end of the S$2.223 to S$2.290 range used during book building. The placement price represents a 6.2 per cent discount to A-Reit's volume-weighted average trading price of S$2.3706 on Dec 8.

A-Reit will also offer existing unitholders new units at S$2.218 apiece, or five Singapore cents below the placement price, on the basis of three new units for every 80 held. The rights offering will raise at least S$207.9 million.

A further S$0.4 million of units could be issued to the manager as fees.

About S$224.7 million of the proceeds will be used to help pay for the planned S$420 million acquisition of One@Changi City; another S$82 million will be used to help pay for a potential acquisition of a logistics property in Australia that has yet to be confirmed; about S$98.8 million will be used to repay debt and fund future acquisitions; and the remaining S$2.8 million will be used for fees and expenses.

Olam International: The commodity trader is offering to buy back up to US$500 million of its 6 per cent convertible bonds due 2016. The offer price was not disclosed.

CapitaLand Mall Trust: It will redevelop Funan DigitaLife Mall into an integrated development in order to better utilise its allowable gross plot ratio of 7.0, which gives the property another 388,000 square feet of gross floor area to develop. The mall is expected to close in the third quarter of 2016.

City Developments Ltd (CDL): The developer is partnering Australian developers Abacus Property Group and KPG Capital to develop a residential site in Brisbane's prime South Bank precinct.

CDL and Abacus will provide A$30 million (S$30.75 million) each to take majority interest in the venture.