Logos Acquires S$585M Singapore Industrial Project in Sale and Leaseback Deal

After a string of recent acquisitions in the antipodes, logistics specialist Logos Property has switched focus back to the Singapore market with the purchase of a 25-hectare (61.8-acre) industrial project from a local unit of global solar firm REC.

Through the sale-and-leaseback deal, Sydney-based Logos will take possession from REC of a 151,810 square metre (1,634,000 square foot) integrated manufacturing and warehouse facility in the Tuas South region of Singapore, under the condition that it lease back the property to the Norwegian solar giant.

Neither company reported financial details on the transaction, but CBRE, which brokered the transaction, called it the “largest single-asset industrial deal in Singapore” over the last year, and said that the sale was worth S$585 million ($430 million). Sources with knowledge of the deal told Mingtiandi that the transaction was worth more than that figure, however.

Solar Panel Making to Continue

The alternative energy firm opened the facility, which is dedicated to the production of solar cells and solar panels, in 2010, and REC Group CFO Jan Enno Bicker said in the same statement that the deal worked for his company because it would “unlock capital which will be deployed to further strengthen REC’s balance sheet and enable investment in new technology and expansion.”

Comprised of three main buildings that REC will continue to use as its manufacturing chain — the “wafer” building, the “cell building” and the “module building, the complex is adjacent to Singapore’s future Tuas Mega-Port.  The new multibillion-dollar home for Singapore’s maritime industry is expected be able to handle 65 million containers annually, up from Singapore’s current capacity of 40 million upon its scheduled completion in 2040.

Logos’ Southeast Asia managing director, Stephen Hawkins, said the acquisition was part of the company’s plan to expand its holdings in Singapore and the region. “The REC agreement sees us strengthen our presence in the strategic Tuas South market, which is set to benefit from future government-approved infrastructure improvements including the Tuas Mega Port,” Hawkins said in the press release.

A Well-Spent Summer

Logos was involved in a flurry of deals last year as it expanded its reach in Asia Pacific.

In August, it announced it had acquired a 110,000-square-metre (1.2-million-square-foot) industrial site near Singapore’s West Coast Highway that it will develop into a S$270 million ($198 million) e-commerce logistics facility.

It made three deals in the western Melbourne suburb of Truganina — a 23-kilometre shot to Port Melbourne — during the summer alone. In August it acquired a 77,000-square-metre (829,000-square-foot) Kmart distribution centre there for A$119 million ($86 million). The asset is located at 2-12 Banfield Court on a 14-hectare plot, and is fully leased to Kmart Australia, a subsidiary of ASX-listed Wesfarmers Limited.

In June, Logos it purchased a 27.5 hectare industrial site in Truganina for a reported A$28 million ($20.9 million), also intending to develop the site into a modern logistics centre. That site, at 285 Palmers Road, is about 2.6 kilometres from 2-12 Banfield Court.

In July, Logos acquired a site at Infinity Drive, a few hundred metres from 285 Palmers Road.

During the same month, Logos made further inroads even farther down under, in New Zealand, when it agreed to acquire a 10-hectare site in Auckland for a reported $147 million to develop a 55,000-square-metre logistics facility. The deal was the first in the country for Logos.