CapitaLand Ascendas REIT Buying Indiana Warehouse From DHL for $116M

CapitaLand Ascendas REIT has agreed to buy a modern warehouse in the state of Indiana from logistics giant DHL for S$150.3 million ($115.8 million), marking CLAR’s second US industrial acquisition to be announced in as many months.

DHL will lease back the property’s 979,649 square feet (91,012 square metres) of gross floor area until December 2035, with options to renew for two additional five-year terms, the SGX-listed trust’s manager said Tuesday in a release. The lease for DHL Indianapolis Logistics Center features built-in yearly rent escalations of 3.5 percent to provide income stability, the manager said.

The deal follows last month’s news that CLAR would acquire its first logistics development project in the US at a site in South Carolina for a total investment cost of S$94.8 million ($70.5 million).

“DHL Indianapolis Logistics Center is a strategic fit with our existing portfolio and will increase CLAR’s US logistics portfolio value by 35.3 percent to S$587.5 million with a total gross floor area of 5.1 million square feet,” said William Tay, CEO and executive director of the manager, which is owned by Temasek-controlled CapitaLand Investment.

First US Sale-Leaseback

DHL Indianapolis Logistics Center is CLAR’s first sale-leaseback acquisition in the US. Upon completion of the transaction in the first quarter of 2025, modern logistics assets will make up 42.3 percent of the trust’s US logistics assets under management.

Completed in 2022 and situated in the Whiteland suburb to the south of the state capital, Indianapolis, the property is a fully air-conditioned, single-storey warehouse with ceiling heights of 12.2 metres (40 feet). The shed lies along the north-south Interstate Highway 65 corridor within 45 kilometres (28 miles) of downtown Indianapolis and Indianapolis International Airport.

The purchase consideration translates to $118 per square foot of GFA and represents a 4.1 percent discount to the independent market valuation, according to the manager. The first-year net property income yield is 7.6 percent pre-transaction costs and 7.4 percent post-transaction costs.

The manager plans to finance the total acquisition cost of S$153.4 million with a combination of internal resources, divestment proceeds and existing debt facilities.

Mapletree New Jersey Project

Also on Tuesday, CapitaLand’s Temasek stablemate Mapletree Investments announced its successful acquisition of a 22.5 acre (9.1 hectare) site in New Jersey for development of a 250,000 square foot warehouse.

Located along Burlington-Mount Holly Road in southern New Jersey’s Westampton Township, the site near the state’s famed Turnpike will grow Mapletree’s existing 70 million square foot US logistics portfolio with a facility designed to attract a diverse range of occupiers across industries, according to a company statement. No financial details were disclosed.

“This acquisition highlights our ongoing commitment to expanding our footprint in the US, which remains Mapletree’s largest market globally,” said Mapletree US CEO Richard Prokup. “It also aligns with a key component of our latest five-year plan which focuses on US logistics development in high potential markets.”