MapleTree – BT

Mapletree Logistics Trust buys 4 warehouses

MAPLETREE Logistics Trust is acquiring four warehouse properties in Singapore from listed Union Steel Holdings for $36.8 million. Mapletree, through its trustee, HSBC Institutional Trust Services (Singapore), has signed a put and call option for the properties, it said in a statement yesterday. The four properties are located at Pioneer Road North, Neythal Road, Tuas Avenue 8 and Tuas View Square.

Union Steel Pte Ltd will lease back the Pioneer Road North and Neythal Road warehouses, while YLS Steel Pte Ltd will lease the two Tuas warehouses. Both the lessees are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Union Steel Holdings.

The lease tenure for all the properties is six years, with an option to extend for a further six years.

Mapletree said the acquisitions will be accretive to its distribution per unit (DPU). The proforma financial effect of the acquisitions on the DPU for the financial year ended December 2006 would be an additional 0.1 Singapore cent per unit.

‘The good location of the properties, which are in established industrial estates, will underpin capital values and provide good upward reversion potential,’ said Chua Tiow Chye, chief executive officer of Mapletree Logistics Trust Management, the manager of the trust. ‘These accretive assets will contribute positively to the stability of the returns for our unit holders.’

The acquisition is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2007. Mapletree said it will have sufficient debt capacity to fund the acquisition wholly by debt, although it could also explore alternative means of funding should the need arise.