AEW Snaps Up Singapore Office Tower From Sun Venture for $489M 

AEW has agreed to buy an office tower in Singapore’s Jurong East from local investment firm Sun Venture for S$680 million ($488.54 million) in the latest vote of global investor confidence in the city’s rebounding office market, Mingtiandi has learned.

AEW has signed a sale and purchase agreement to acquire the Westgate Tower in western Singapore from the local asset manager, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal, which was first reported by the Business Times, will add 304,965 square feet (28,332 square metres) of desk space to AEW’s Singapore holdings.

The Boston-based fund manager picked up the 20-storey suburban office tower connected to the Jurong East MRT station just a few months after it offloaded Twenty Anson office tower to KKR in April for S$599 million following its divestment of 55 Market Street near Raffles Place to Japan’s Kajima Corp in February for S$287 million.

AEW’s Jurong East acquisition comes amid growing demand for office space in Singapore’s suburbs where cheaper rents for quality buildings are attracting international occupiers as leasing rates in the central business district continue to spike, said Wong Xian Yang, Cushman and Wakefield’s research head for Singapore.

Secondary Hub

AEW is paying around S$2,230 per square foot of leasable area for the office block, which is currently around 90 percent occupied by multinational tenants such as German car maker Mercedes Benz as well as by local heavyweights like insurer Great Eastern Life.

The transaction price is 17 percent more than what Sun Venture and its partner, local builder Low Keng Huat, paid for the Westgate Tower when the two acquired the asset from Singapore property heavyweight CapitaLand for S$579 million in 2014. Just last year Sun Venture bought out the stake held by its then partner in the project, Low Keng Huat through an asset swap.

Once the deal is completed, which is expected to happen in the next two weeks, Mingtiandi understands that the new owner will only undertake minor upgrades to help boost rental reversions for the asset, which has roughly 88 years left on a 99-year land tenure awarded in 2011.

CBRE is understood to have brokered the deal but representatives from the agency did not comment. Officials from AEW and Sun Venture also declined to comment.

Traditionally an industrial area, Singapore’s government has been promoting the development of Jurong East as a “live-work-play” hub with the creation of new amenities surrounding the nearby Jurong Lake District.

Suburb Returns

Situated at the intersection of Gateway Drive and Boon Lay Way, the property connects directly to Jurong East MRT station and is part of the Westgate integrated project developed by CapitaLand. The complex includes a mall component that opened in 2013, with the office block having been completed in 2014.

The development also sits beside the Jem retail and office complex which was the subject of a February transaction in which Lendlease Global Commercial REIT bought the remaining stake it did not already own in the property for S$2 billion.

Regional developer Wing Tai Properties also bet on Jurong East last month when it spent S$274 million to acquire the Lakeside Apartments through a collective sale, with plans to develop a new residential project on the 134,000 square foot site.

In its latest office marketbeat report Cushman and Wakefield said office rents in Singapore’s suburban districts rose by 0.7 percent last quarter, from the preceding three months, to reach S$5.59 per square foot as part of a gradual upward trend outside of the CBD.

“Grade A office rents in key decentralised office markets are expected to move higher amidst a broad office market recovery and limited supply,” C&W’s Wong said, while noting that gross achievable leasing rates for Grade A offices in Jurong East currently average over $6 per square foot a month.

Betting on Suburb Office

Including this most recent transaction, AEW has now participated in S$1.57 billion in Singapore office transactions this year as multinational corporations compete for desk space in Southeast Asia’s leading economy.

The firm completed the sale of Twenty Anson office tower in Tanjong Pagar to KKR two months ago, selling that property at a 16 percent premium over what it had paid to acquire the asset from CapitaLand Commercial Trust in 2018. That deal in Singapore’s urban core followed AEW’s February divestment of 55 Market Street in Raffles Place to Kajima.

Outside the Lion City, AEW has also been expanding its presence in Japan via an April purchase of a portfolio of six multi-family assets for JPY 23 billion (then $180 million). In December of last year the firm picked up the 388-room Hotel Sav in Hong Kong’s Kowloon area for HK$1.65 billion (then $210 million).