Sister companies Frasers Property and Frasers Centrepoint Trust have together bought close to a 35% stake in the PGIM Real Estate AsiaRetail fund for around SDG700m (€455.8m).
IPE Real Assets understands that the tranches of 17.1% and 17.8% became available in the largest unlisted shopping centre fund in Singapore as existing investors looked to exit their investments.
The Singapore companies notified the Singapore stock exchange on two different occasions to announce their separate deals to buy into the SGD3.6bn open-end core real estate fund.
The reason for their sell down in the fund is not known, nor is the identity of the investors.
A PGIM Real Estate spokesperson declined to comment on the identity or types of investors involved.
Frasers Property, a diversified, global developer with interests in China, Australia and the UK, was the first to announce that a subsidiary, Frasers Property Crystal, planned to purchase 17.8% of the retail fund for SGD355.5m.
Less than a fortnight later, Frasers Centrepoint Trust, one of the top three shopping centre owners in Singapore, announced that it had agreed to buy a combined stake of 17.1% for around SGD342.5m.
Frasers said the acquisition was in line with the group’s strategy to grow recurring incomes sources in one of its key asset classes - suburban retail properties.
The PGIM Real Estate AsiaRetail Fund, one of the most successful Asia core funds, owns and manages shopping centres are located in densely-populated housing estates outside Singapore’s core central business district.
PGIM Real Estate has been investing in the commercial real estate markets in the Asia Pacific since 1994 and now manages US$7.1bn (€6.3bn) of gross assets in markets including South Korea, Australia, China and Japan.
As well as the PGIM Real Estate AsiaRetail Fund, PGIM Real Estate, the real estate investment business of the US-based PGIM, also runs the Asia Property Fund series.
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