(Bloomberg) — A joint venture backed by private equity giant Warburg Pincus LLC has bought about S$1.6 billion ($1.2 billion) worth of real estate assets in Singapore, the biggest commercial deal in the city-state this year.
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The as-yet-unnamed platform, which is also backed by Australia’s Lendlease Corp., will acquire business parks and specialty assets targeting life sciences and research and development companies. The portfolio covers 4.5 million square metres of gross floor area across Singapore, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday.
The assets will be acquired by companies affiliated with Blackstone Inc. and Lim Chap Huat, Executive Chairman of Soilbuild Group Holdings Ltd.
Warburg, whose other real estate investments in Asia include Hong Kong-based ESR Group Ltd., launched the life sciences and R&D platform with Lendlease late last month. Lendlease had previously announced that it was selling its life sciences interests in Asia to the 50:50 company for SGD 129 million.
Although it has attracted interest from investors, the Singapore industrial market rarely sees such large transactions – one of the largest ever – in the tightly controlled and regulated space. Warburg’s Singapore-based platform will manage assets worth over two billion Singapore dollars following the deal.
Due to high interest rates and the large price differences between buyers and sellers, real estate transactions in the financial metropolis are subdued. In the first half of the year, transactions in the commercial real estate sector fell by 49 percent year-on-year to $2.9 billion, according to data from MSCI Inc.
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