LONDON – Standard Chartered has sold its two business park assets in Singapore to Japanese investors, as part of what the British lender described as a “capital efficient” strategy.
The sale to property developer Hulic and RISA Partners, a real estate-focused investment bank, was announced by the buyers in a joint statement on Aug 5.
Both Tokyo-based firms are jointly buying the assets via a platform for Japanese investors set up by Hillhouse-backed EZA Hill Property Management and TRI Investment Management.
The buildings are in Changi Business Park in the country’s east end, a traditional hub for financial firms’ back-end operations that has suffered from high vacancies in recent years.
Standard Chartered has sought in the past to lease out its space there, Bloomberg News previously reported.
The investors said they believed continued demand for high-quality business park space will lead to a “stable long-term performance” for the assets.
EZA Hill Co-founder Frank Ng said the moves to team up with Hulic and RISA Partners were part of the firm’s attempts to broaden its capital base to include prominent Japanese institutions.
Standard Chartered’s Singapore Chief Executive Officer Patrick Lee said the bank will continue to occupy the buildings via a long-term leaseback agreement. It was “part of our strategy to be capital efficient and will provide us with long-term capacity for business growth,” he said in the statement.
Lee said that Singapore’s largest international bank continues to maintain a “significant presence” in offices across the country. The lender has in past years also cut back on its city-centre office space. BLOOMBERG
