Frasers Property and Frasers Centrepoint Trust are buying a half stake in a suburban shopping centre in Singapore from Mercatus Co-Operative for S$652.5m (€456.8m).
Mercatus subsidiary Mercatus Tres is selling its stake in Gold Ridge, a company which owns, manages and operates the NEX shopping centre. The transaction valued the shopping centre at S$2.08bn as at 31 December 2022.
Richard Ng, CEO of FCT’s manager, said, NEX is a complementary fit to FCT’s existing suburban retail property portfolio. “The acquisition will further enhance FCT’s portfolio diversification and strengthen its performance.”
Soon Su Lin, CEO of Frasers Property Singapore, said: “This investment in NEX further strengthens our focus in the suburban retail segment where we already have an established platform and strong capabilities.”
Post-settlement, FCT will indirectly hold a 25.5% interest in Gold Ridge through NEX Partners Trust, while Frasers Property will hold a 24.5% interest via the same vehicle.
Mercatus, the real estate arm of the large Singapore group, NTUC Enterprise, acquired the shopping mall in 2012 from a trust, managed by Pramerica Asia.
The property, which was first offered for an auction in June last year, had a 99.9% committed occupancy as of 30 November 2022.
Mercatus also sold in late December two suburban shopping centres – Jurong Point shopping centre in western Singapore and Swing By @ Thomson Plaza, a section of the Thomson Plaza mall in central Singapore to Hong Kong’s Link REIT for a total of S$2.16bn.
A previous version of this story misstated the value of the NEX mall stake
To read the latest edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.
