Welcome to this week’s edition of top stock market highlights.
CapitaLand Ascendas REIT, or CLAR, announced that it will divest five industrial and logistics properties in Singapore for a total consideration of S$329 million.
The properties are 31 Ubi Road 1, 9 Changi South Street 3, 10 Toh Guan Road, 19 & 21 Pandan Avenue, and 30 Tampines Industrial Avenue 3.
The sale consideration is at around a 6% premium to the market valuation of these properties of S$311.3 million, and is also a 20% increase over their original purchase price of S$274.2 million.
This move is in line with the manager’s proactive capital recycling strategy to improve the quality of CLAR’s portfolio and increase overall returns for unitholders.
The net proceeds amount to S$313.1 million and may be used for the reduction of debt, general working capital purposes, or to make distributions to unitholders.
Assuming the proceeds are used for debt reduction, CLAR would see its aggregate leverage reduced from 37.7% to around 36.6%.
The transaction is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of this year.
Following this divestment, CLAR’s portfolio will comprise 226 properties in total, spread across Singapore (93), Australia (34), the US (49), and the UK/Europe (50).
Temasek Holdings is considering its biggest overhaul in years as it mulls reorganising the investment company into three separate investment vehicles to boost returns and efficiencies.
Senior management is still in discussion, and the proposal could split its business into three arms.
Should this happen, the first arm will focus on Temasek’s Singaporean holdings such as blue-chip DBS Group (SGX: D05) and Sembcorp Industries (SGX: U96).
The second unit will oversee foreign investments, while the third will include all of Temasek’s fund investments.
These suggestions are preliminary and are subject to change, but could be the most significant restructuring of the investment firm since it was formed 51 years ago.
Temasek is under pressure to deliver higher returns while streamlining its operations, and its 10-year total shareholder return stood at 5%.
Note that the total shareholder return includes a combination of capital gains and dividends.
However, this return has underperformed the MSCI World Index, which returned an annualised 10% total return in the decade through March 2025.
If the reorganisation does proceed, key executives will be able to better focus their attention on improving the firm’s performance and efficiency.
Elsewhere, Temasek’s newly-appointed chairman, former senior minister Teo Chee Hean, is set to commence his role on 9 October.
Read More: CapitaLand Ascendas REIT, Temasek Holdings and SATS
