Robinson Centre close to being sold: sources

Price expected to be in the range of S$2,550-S$2,600 psf; buyer understood to be a private fund managed by ARA

Tue, Dec 03, 2019

KALPANA RASHIWALA


ROBINSON Centre, a 20-storey office building in the CBD, is close to being sold, BT understands.

Market watchers expect the pricing to be around S$340 million, or in the range of S$2,550-S$2,600 per square foot based on the building net lettable area of about 132,300 sq ft. Robinson Centre is on a site with about 76 years left on its leasehold tenure.

BT understands that the potential buyer is a private fund managed by ARA Asset Management, possibly ARA Real Estate Partners Asia II.

The ARA fund may be teaming up with a partner, which some sources suggest could be M&G, for the Robinson Centre acquisition.

The seller is an entity connected to Homax group, which is controlled by the Tsai family of Taiwan.

Last year, a Singaporean member of the Tsai family acquired a sprawling freehold Good Class Bungalow along Dalvey Road for S$93.9 million. The 52,059 sq ft elevated site is large enough to be redeveloped into three bungalows.

The property was sold by the estate of the late Lim Kim San, the first chairman of the Housing Board and a former executive chairman of Singapore Press Holdings.

Homax acquired Robinson Centre in 2011 for around S$293 million from a fund managed by Alpha Investment Partners, which in turn had bought the building for S$145 million from GuocoLand in 2006.

Including Robinson Centre, the total sales of big-ticket office transactions in Singapore of at least S$10 million each would amount to nearly S$7 billion so far this year.

Galven Tan, deputy managing director of investment sales and capital markets at Savills Singapore, said: "Singapore continues to be a key market for investors and the number of good-quality office buildings remains limited. Interest rates have begun to trend downwards which may lead to further yield compression.

"Moreover, supply of new office space is stable; thus investors remain confident of future rental growth beyond 2020/2021."

Savills Singapore head of research Alan Cheong noted that investors are buying Singapore real estate to hedge against uncertainty.

"And when you are dealing with uncertainty, it is no longer a question of yield but capital preservation and appreciation," he said.