CapitaCommercial Trust selling Robinson Point

CapitaCommercial Trust (CCT) is close to selling Robinson Point for some $200 million, or about $1,500 per square foot of net lettable area, BT understands.

The buyer of the 21-storey freehold office property is said to be US property fund manager AEW. AEW bought the former Apollo Centre in late 2007 for $205 million, and has since revamped it through a major retrofitting exercise that was completed last year.

Robinson Point has a net lettable area of 133,139 sq ft and is said to have about 90 per cent occupancy.

The building generated $7.3 million net property income (NPI) for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2008. For the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2009, Robinson Point’s NPI was $2.62 million.

Some market watchers recall the property was in the market a few years ago, with a potential buyer even doing due diligence on it. However, the deterioration in office capital values put CCT’s target price at the time out of sight.

Robinson Point was completed in 1997 by DBS Land – which had merged with Pidemco Land in 2000 to form CapitaLand. In merger documents, the property was valued at $193 million as at June 15, 2000. It was part of CapitaLand’s office portfolio that was spun off to CCT when the trust was listed on the Singapore Exchange in 2004.

Market watchers wonder whether AEW will spruce up the property, just as it has done for the former Apollo Centre.

Under the revamp, the seven-storey building’s net floor area has increased from some 148,000 sq ft to 170,000 sq ft. The property is now known as 2 Havelock Road.

Market watchers note that Robinson Point’s impending sale reflects foreign investors’ growing appetite in the Singapore office market again.

The office blocks that had changed hands last year were mostly smallish deals of under $100 million apiece and bought mostly by local players.

For example, Parakou Building at the Robinson Road/McCallum Street junction was bought by a unit of Choo Meileen’s Cathay Organisation, and VTB Building at Robinson Road, Aviva Building at Cecil Street and Cecil House next-door were purchased by interests linked to Fission Group and Yi Kai Group.

AEW, which is headquartered in Boston, and its affiliates manage more than US$45 billion of real estate assets and securities, as at Sept 30, 2009, on behalf of institutional and private investors. The group set up an office in Singapore in April 2007.

Source: Business Times, 18 Jan 2010