SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) City Developments Limited (CDL) on Friday morning confirmed that it had applied for an IPO of a Reit with commercial assets located in Britain, to be listed on SGX’s mainboard.
While CDL did not provide a deal value, Bloomberg on Thursday reported that the IPO could raise some £500 million (S$940 million).
Citing unnamed sources, it said the Reit aims to list in the third quarter of this year and will have a portfolio size of about £1.8 billion.
In a filing on SGX, the property giant said on Friday that relevant applications have been made to various regulatory authorities, including the exchange and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Its proposed IPO and listing of the Reit are subject to market conditions, among others, it added.
“The company wishes to reiterate that no decision has been made as to whether the transaction will take place and there is currently no certainty that the company will proceed with the offering,” CDL said.
A successful listing would mark the first Reit IPO on SGX this year.
Earlier in May, sources told Bloomberg that Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) may inject HSBC Holdings’ London headquarters building into a UK commercial property Reit to be listed by CDL in Singapore, possibly as early as the third quarter.
CDL has two predominantly office properties in London that could be injected into the UK Reit – 125 Old Broad Street and Aldgate House. The former was acquired in 2018 for £385 million, while the latter for £183 million the same year.
The potential deal would boost the value of CDL’s portfolio to £1.8 billion from £600 million. The IPO, denominated in sterling, would only be the second such offering in Singapore.
QIA and CDL did not comment on the matter, according to Bloomberg.
In 2020, CDL’s massive $1.78 billion impairment on Sincere Property Group, its joint venture in China, contributed to a full-year net loss of $1.92 billion.
While the group saw improvement across its core business segments in the first quarter this year, the prolonged pandemic remains a concern as it continues to adversely impact operations, CDL said in an update last month.
The group and its joint venture associates sold 319 units with a total sales value of $513.6 million in the first quarter, a 72 per cent increase from a year ago. The sales in the quarter were spread across various property categories.
CDL shares were down 0.4 per cent at $7.80 at 10.30am on Friday, while the broader market was flat. The company’s shares have fallen about 1.6 per cent to date this year.