Bookmark & Share
Sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) on Monday (6 June) announced that it has reached an agreement to buy Asia Square Tower 1 from BlackRock for S$3.4 billion.
According to JLL, one of the advisors for the sale together with CBRE, the transaction represents largest-ever single-tower real estate deal in the Asia-Pacific region to date and the second-largest single-tower real estate transaction globally.
The 43-storey Grade A office building located at Singapore’s Marina Bay financial district comprises more than 1.2 million square feet of Grade A office space and nearly 40,000 square feet of retail space, BlackRock and Qatar Investment Authority said in a joint statement, adding that the building’s anchor tenant is Citi Group.
“Following this flagship transaction, we expect there will be increasing investor interest in Singapore prime office stock in the coming months,” says JLL head of Capital Markets Singapore, Grey Hyland.
Before the sale, it was reported that Asia Square Tower 1 received interest from a variety of companies and funds including Norway’s sovereign fund and Keppel Group’s property arm Keppel Land. Singapore property developer CapitaLand in October last year also confirmed being in talks with BlackRock but later on pulled out of the deal. While the CapitaLand cited no specific reason, it said it “will continue to explore opportunities which fit in the group’s strategy and the terms of which allow the group to generate the required returns.”
Meanwhile, BlackRock remains the owner of the second tower at Asia Square.
Image source: JLL
Nikki De Guzman, Editor at CommercialGuru, wrote this story. To contact her about this or other stories email nikki@propertyguru.com.sg