CapitaLand has unveiled plans to grow assets under management by more than SGD10bn (€6.1bn) to SGD100bn by 2020.
President and group CEO Lim Ming Yan said the Singapore-based developer intended to reach its target by managing assets on behalf of third-party investors and co-investing with others.
CapitaLand manages assets totalling SGD88bn across three listed REITs and a number of unlisted vehicles.
Speaking to analysts when announcing the group’s 2017 results, he said: “SGD100bn is a good enough size to give us significant scale. It is not easy to replicate SGD100bn in terms of assets.”
A global platform is the best way to capture emerging opportunities, Lim said, pointing to global urbanisation trends, a growth in tourism, ageing populations and rising allocations to real estate among institutional investors.
He said Singapore and China remained CapitaLand’s core markets, but Vietnam offered opportunities and CapitaLand would seek to deploy more capital into developed markets, including Australia, Japan, the US and European countries.
CapitaLand is also moving into developing countries, such as Indonesia where it has entered into development for the first time.
Lim said that CapitaLand would continue to invest and sell assets simultaneously in certain markets, including China.
The company recently sold a portfolio of 20 shopping malls in “non-core locations” in China for CNY8.37bn (€1.06bn), and in December sold stakes in six malls in India for SGD71.5m. It will continue to make new investments in both countries.
Disposals of non-core assets generated SGD2.6bn in capital, Lim said, which will be reinvested. The group made SGD5.7bn in new investments in the 2017 financial year. CapitaLand intends to recycle around SGD3bn in assets annually, he added.
It recorded a net profit of SGD1.55bn in 2017, up 30.3% on the previous year.
