(March 12): UI Boustead REIT plunged in its debut after an initial public offering (IPO) that raised about $973.6 million, Singapore’s biggest this year so far.
Units of the real estate investment trust fell to a low of more than 9% below the 88 cents per share offer price on Thursday and closed at 80.5 cents. That compares with a weighted average first-day gain of 4.5% for Singapore IPOs over the past year.
The offering received orders for about 3.3 times the number of units on sale in its placement tranche, which excludes cornerstone and retail investors. The retail portion in Singapore was about 2.9 times oversubscribed.
Investors were attracted to “the quality of the REIT’s IPO portfolio and growth prospects, UIB’s unique developer-sponsor positioning” and its reputation for projects in Singapore and Japan, said Jingkai Yew, head of Southeast Asia equity capital markets at Citigroup Inc, one of the arrangers.
The IPO builds on the city-state’s recent momentum in share-sale activity, after years of lacklustre performance in the deals space. Singapore IPOs raised US$1.9 billion last year to notch the highest proceeds since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. So far this year, excluding UI Boustead REIT’s listing, total proceeds from IPO are just a bit over US$20 million, the data show.
See also: DayOne Data Centers close to confidential filing for US IPO — Bloomberg
The IPO is among the largest for REITs in recent years, even in a stock market where REITs make up around 10% of the Singapore exchange’s market capitalisation, according to the REIT Association of Singapore. NTT DC REIT last year raised US$773 million, while Centurion Accommodation REIT raised about US$600 million.
Investors in the REIT’s IPO include JPMorgan Asset Management, Amundi and Amova Asset Management. Citigroup, DBS Group Holdings Ltd and United Overseas Bank Ltd are among those arranging the listing.
Uploaded by Evelyn Chan
