An artist’s impression of Coliwoo’s upcoming Arab Street project (Image: Coliwoo)
The boom in Asia’s living sector may be set to pay dividends for Singapore’s LHN Group as the developer prepares a separate SGX listing for its rental residential business.
LHN has applied to list Coliwoo, its co-living unit, on the mainboard of the Singapore stock exchange following a spin-off of the living sector strategy from its main business, the company announced late on Tuesday.
The planned listing of Singapore’s largest co-living operator comes after LHN formally established a separate Coliwoo entity in December, with that company set to hold the rental residential business following completion of an internal restructuring to facilitate the proposed spin-off, according to the notice.
The spin-off plan comes as institutional capital has shown growing interest in Singapore’s nascent rental residential sector, with players including BlackRock and Bain Capital investing in the sector.
Growing Portfolio
LHN’s announcement did not provide financial details of the proposed proposed spin-off and listing, with the company having reported S$52.4 million ($40 million) in revenue from its co-living business in the 12 months ending 30 September.
LHN executive chairman and Coliwoo founder Kelvin Lim (Image: LHN)
That revenue was up 85.5 percent from a year earlier as LHN reported 97.5 percent occupancy in its expanded rental residential portfolio at the end of September. At that juncture the company had 2,895 keys under the living strategy, including both co-living properties in Singapore and serviced apartments overseas, according to its most recent annual report.
The company led by chairman Kelvin Lim said in the report that, “The Group remains focused on expanding its co-living portfolio through a robust pipeline of projects to capture the growing demand for flexible and affordable accommodation.”
By 30 September this year LHN expects to launch new Coliwoo projects at 48 and 50 Arab Street, the GSM Building at 141 Middle Road and 260 Upper Bukit Timah Road, which will add more than 250 keys to its current operations.
In October of last year Coliwoo formed a S$48 million JV with Macritchie Developments, a company co-owned by Oxley Holdings chairman and CEO Ching Chiat Kwong and his son Shawn Ching to acquire 50 Armenian Street in Singapore’s museum district as an addition to the rental housing portfolio.
Later that same month, LHN announced that it would sell a stake in an entity holding the GSM Building at the corner of Middle Road and Waterloo Street in Singapore to Macritchie Developments, after LHN had agreed to acquire that commercial building in 2023 for conversion to residential use.
Institutional Interest
LHN plans to spin off Coliwoo as Singapore’s high residential rents and growing importance as a regional commercial hub have stoked investor interest in rental residential strategies.
In February of this year Warburg Pincus-backed platform Weave Living opened two new properties in Singapore, expanding the regional platform’s Lion City portfolio to three locations with a total of 330 units.
The company led by entrepreneur Sachin Doshi had acquired one of the two properties, Weave Suites Hillside, for S$148 million in early 2024 through a joint venture with a BlackRock fund.
Bain Capital also recently bet on Singapore’s rental residential sector with its purchase of the Avery Lodge worker housing portfolio from Blackstone for S$750 million after those assets were first put on the market in mid-2024.
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