Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Indiabulls Property Trust (IPIT) all set to list in Singapore

Real Estate trusts listed in Singapore have seen unfavorable markets during the past few months, following significant falls in share prices and hence companies opting for Initial Public Offers have rightly stayed away from the declining market. Surprisingly enough, Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust (IPIT) looks like it is set to launch an offering of about S$260 million ($190 million) within the next couple of weeks, following the start of pre-marketing at the end of last week, which means a saving grace for IPOs looking at the Singapore market in the near future.The listing vehicle for this IPO is sponsored Indiabulls Real Estate (IBRE), which is by India’s third largest property developer in terms of market capitalization, will be structured largely as a real estate investment trust (REIT) but will be listed as a business trust to give it greater flexibility with regard to how much of its portfolio can be made up of properties still under development. The initial portfolio will consist of two commercial property developments in the up-and-coming business & commercial district of Lower Parel in Mumbai, which was a former industrial region that used to house numerous textile mills like Pheonix Mills & Jupiter Mills, but is now a micro-market with high-end commercial and residential developments. All Residential as well as Commercial developments in the Lower Parel area, are premium because of lack of availability of good commercial space in Mumbai, high rental values and quality tenants, including banks, financial institutions and large corporations.


Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust (IPIT)’s developments – One Indiabulls Centre (which was formerly known as Jupiter Mills) and Elphinstone Mills are located within two IT parks in the area. When finished, the two combined will have 2.97 million square foot of lettable office space, 438,000 sq ft of retail space and 119,000 sq ft of residential housing. If successfully listed, IPIT will become only the second property trust in Singapore to be backed by Indian assets after Ascendas India Trust (a-iTrust) that listed in July last year, beating DLF and Unitech to the punch. DLF, Unitech and Indiabulls were all considering spinning off part of their property assets through the REIT route or business trust in Singapore around Feb this year, but the plans were postponed as the selling pressure on global equities intensified. At the time, DLF and Unitech were both aiming for significantly larger IPOs at up to $1.5 billion and $700 million, respectively.

It is a logical decision for IndiaBulls Real Estate to vouch for the early mover advantage in being the first to take on the still challenging market. Considering that a-iTrust is still down 30% from its highs from November, this move could prove to be both risky & smart, since the Singapore market is showing signs of recovering.

It is also said that Billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, the world's richest Indian, has committed to buy units equivalent to a 3.9 per cent stake in IPIT, which is in process of listing in Singapore.


Shivang Prabhakar

Contributed By : Shivang Prabhakar

No comments: