Tag Archives: Perennial Katong Retail Trust

New owners will spend $55m to redevelop the property

A consortium of investors – including CapitaLand’s former head of retail Pua Seck Guan – has signed a deal to buy Katong Mall from Tuan Sing Holdings for $247.6 million.

New look and feel: Artist’s impression of a revamped Katong Mall, which has already started attracting new tenants

The deal marks one of the largest investment transactions in Singapore’s property market this year.

Katong Mall was acquired by Tuan Sing in June 2008 through a collective sale deal. The property group paid $219 million for the site then.

The consortium of investors – which comprises no more than six parties and includes corporate investors, institutional investors and Mr Pua – is acquiring Katong Mall via Perennial Katong Retail Trust, a private property trust set up for the purpose of buying the mall.

The transaction is expected to be completed by end-January 2010. The sale was brokered by Landmark Property Advisers.

Katong Mall, located at the junction of East Coast Road and Joo Chiat Road, is a four-storey building with three basement levels and with remaining lease of about 70 years. The new owners will spend $55 million to redevelop the property, which is expected to increase the mall’s net lettable area by about 20 per cent, from 172,170 square feet to over 206,000 sq ft.

Works, which are expected to last for 12 to 15 months, will commence sometime next year upon approval from the relevant authorities.

‘Katong Mall has immense potential to become a thriving lifestyle-cum-food and beverage hub in the Katong and Marine Parade precincts,’ said Mr Pua. ‘The mall enjoys an excellent location and is well-supported by large affluent population catchments from the surrounding Marine Parade, Katong and Joo Chiat areas.’

In addition, Katong Mall presents ’significant value creation opportunities’ which can be harnessed through good asset planning, appropriate repositioning and optimal tenancy remixing, he added.

There are already new tenants lined up.

The BreadTalk group has expressed keen interest in taking up leasable space at the revamped Katong Mall to house a series of its brands, such as Food Republic, Din Tai Fung, BreadTalk, Toast Box and Ramen Play.

Mr Pua’s Perennial Real Estate, a Singapore-registered real estate company, also has a majority stake in the company that will manage the mall.

Tuan Sing said that after taking into account the relevant acquisition cost, the book value of Katong Mall came to $194.8 million as at end-September 2009.

The expected gain from the transaction is estimated to be about $42.7 million, or 3.75 cents per ordinary share.

Source : Business Times – 10 Nov 2009

Mainboard-listed property and industrial services firm Tuan Sing said on Monday that it has sold Katong Mall for S$247.55 million.

Its wholly-owned subsidiary, Golden Cape Investments, sold the property to an unrelated third party, Perennial Katong Retail Trust.

Golden Cape secured 100 per cent ownership of Katong Mall through a successful bidding of S$219 million in an en bloc sale in June last year.

Prior to that, Golden Cape already owned 72 per cent of the total strata floor area of the Katong Mall.

Tuan Sing said the expected gain from the transaction, after deducting foreseeable expenses, is about S$42.7 million.

Located along East Coast Road, Katong Mall is a four-storey building with three basement levels. It has a remaining leasehold of about 70 years.

Perennial is headed by Pua Seck Guan, former head of CapitaLand’s retail unit, who put together the consortium to buy the mall.

Source : Channel NewsAsia – 9 Nov 2009