A-Reit private placement raises $299m

Posted by luxuryasiahome on January 16, 2009
ASCENDAS Reit (A-Reit), which is looking to raise $400 million through an equity fund-raising exercise, said in a late night announcement yesterday that the private placement tranche has been fully subscribed.
The private placement of 258 million units at $1.16 each means that a total of $299 million has already been raised.
Earlier in the day, A-Reit said its $400 million fund-raising involves a private placement and preferential offering of up to 353.93 million new units. This will be at an issue price of between $1.13 and $1.16 per new unit, it said, representing a discount of between 7 and 9.4 per cent.
A-Reit yesterday also reported net property income (NPI) of $74.2 million for its third quarter ended Dec 31, 2008, an increase of 20.9 per cent compared to a year ago.
Income available for distribution was $54 million for the quarter, an increase of 14.4 per cent year on year while distribution per unit (DPU) was 4.05 cents per unit, an increase of 13.8 per cent.
On the net proceeds from the equity fund raising, A-Reit said this will be used to fund development projects, as well as to reduce its aggregate leverage and strengthen its balance sheet.
About $200 million will be used to partly or wholly fund committed development projects and/or future development projects, while about $100 million, together with an existing $200 million committed bank credit facility, will be used towards the full repayment of A-Reit’s $300 million commercial mortgage-backed securities maturing in August.
Another $89.9 million will be used towards the partial repayment of outstanding revolving credit facilities of about $438.1 million outstanding as at Dec 31, 2008.
At end December, A-Reit had secured borrowings repayable in one year of $300 million, and secured borrowings repayable after one year of $745 million.
Unsecured borrowings repayable in one year amounted to $438 million while unsecured borrowings repayable after one year amounted to $432 million.
Tan Ser Ping, CEO of the Reit manager, said: ‘We are confident of meeting all our debt-refinancing requirements over the next two years. With the completion of the equity fund raising, A-Reit will be in a strong position to take advantage of growth opportunities which have arisen due to the current market dislocation.’
Mr Tan did add that 2009 is expected to be a difficult year given the global financial and economic crisis. Still, only 1.6 per cent of A-Reit’s portfolio’s leasable area is up for renewal for the rest of the financial year.
The overall occupancy of A-Reit’s portfolio of 88 properties is also 97.2 per cent. A-Reit said that a total of 41,766 square metres of space had been renewed in the third quarter.
Total new leases (including expansions) for the quarter were 20,671 sq m, of which 23.7 per cent was in Hi-Tech Industrial sector and 50.6 per cent was from the logistics and distribution centres.
At the close of trading yesterday A-Reit units ended at $1.26 per unit, down 10 cents.
Source : Business Times - 16 Jan 2009