Singapore Stock Exchange-listed Ascendas India Trust (a-iTrust), the first Indian realty focused real estate investment trust, has successfully closed its private placement of S$100 million last week.
Ascendas India Trust had notified the Singapore exchange on September 28 regarding its proposed private placement through which it was looking to raise S$70 million- S$100million by offering new units in a-iTrust.
a-iTrust’s follow on equity offering was over-subscribed and the upsize option has been exercised in full. a-iTrust notified the exchange last week that it will offer the new units to investors at S$0.72 per unit to raise gross proceeds of up to S$100 million, with the minimum issue size of S$70 million.
The Joint Placement Agents, Citigroup Global Markets Singapore Pte. Ltd and DBS Bank Ltd., have in consultation with the Trustee-Manager, closed the book of orders for the Private Placement on September 28.
According to the company, the placement saw strong participation from Asian, US and European investors and was approximately 2.6 times subscribed based on the upsized issue of S$100 million or 139 million New Units. The new units represent 18 per cent of existing units.
The issue price of S$0.72 per new unit represents a discount of 9.2 per cent to the adjusted volume weighted average price (vwap) of S$0.7933 per unit for trades in the units on the SGX-ST for the full Market Day on September 27 and a 22 per cent premium to the net asset value per unit based on a-iTrust's unaudited financial results for the first quarter ending June 30. An announcement will also be made when the date the new units are expected to be listed on the SGX-ST is finalised.
Ascendas India Trust was publicly listed in 2007 and after the listing this is the fund’s first attempt in issuing a follow-on equity fund raising for its private placement. The money raised through this offer will be used to finance a-iTrust’s initiatives.
a-iTrust is developing Aviator, a 6 lakh square feet multi-tenanted building in International Tech Park Bangalore (ITPB) that is due for completion in December 2013. It is also planning to buy an additional building within aVance in early 2013. Ascendas India Trust had acquired two buildings in aVance Business Hub (aVance) in February 2012, and has the option to buy three more buildings in aVance which is located in Hyderabad. Also it is in advanced negotiations with several vendors relating to potential acquisitions of assets amounting to an aggregate sum of over S$100 million. The net property yields for these investments are expected to be higher than a-iTrust's existing asset yield and is expected to enhance a-iTrust’s distribution per unit growth moving forward.
(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)