Anson House sold for $85m

The Business Times 20 May 09

Anson House sold for $85m

by Kalpana Rashiwala

(SINGAPORE) In the second transaction of an office block in the past fewdays, a fund managed by Australia's Macquarie Bank has sold Anson House. Theprice is said to be about $85 million or slightly over $1,100 per square footof net lettable area (NLA).

The 13-storey office block, which was completed 11 years ago, is on a site with a remaining lease of about 87 years.

Anson House boasts tenants such as ArcelorMittal, GE Group andSwire Shipping, and is about 98.5 per cent leased. The net yield on theinvestment based on the $85 million transaction price would be more than 6 percent, BT understands.
Sources suggest the purchaser could be a group ofhigh net worth individuals with a presence in Singapore and Australia. Theoffice block was sold via private treaty.

The Macquarie Bank-managedfund which sold Anson House had bought the office block for $129.5 million in2007. However, its loss should be partly offset by the Singapore dollar'sappreciation against the Australian dollar, market watchers say.

Thesale-and-purchase agreement for Anson House is said to have been inked onMonday, the same day that BT reported the sale of the freehold Parakou Buildingat the Robinson Road/McCallum Street junction, for $81.38 million or $1,280 psfof NLA.

It was acquired by a unit of Cathay Organisation, controlled byChoo Meileen. The seller, New Star Asset Management Group (now part ofHenderson Group), also owns One Phillip Street, for which it is said to haverecently received offers of about $1,500 psf.

But industry observersreckon New Star would be under less pressure to sell the 999-year leaseholdproperty - for which it paid $2,736 psf early last year - now that it hasalready divested one asset in Singapore.

'The market is starting to seea return of confidence for office investment sales deals,' notes Cushman &Wakefield Singapore managing director Donald Han, pointing to an uptick inactivity and prices of strata offices.

BT recently reported a sweet spotis surfacing among high net worth investors from Singapore and the region foroffice blocks here priced between $1,100 and $1,300 psf, and involving lump sum investments of $70-100 million.

Source: The Business Times - 20 May 09