Keppel Selling East Coast Mall to Fund Backed by Indonesian Tycoon for $292M

Keppel Ltd has agreed to sell a shopping mall in  Singapore’s Katong area to an investment manager backed by a wealthy Indonesian family for S$372 million ($292 million) as retail properties continue to be most-favoured assets in a booming Singapore commercial property market. 

The Temasek Holdings portfolio company said on Wednesday that it is selling the i12 mall in the comfortable East Coast neighbourhood to Altallo Holdings, as it looks to funnel capital into ventures aligned with digital transformation, energy transition and sustainable urban development. 

“We are pleased to announce the divestment of i12 Katong following a competitive bidding process, underscoring the disciplined approach taken to monetise our non‑core assets,” Lee Kok Chew, head of Keppel’s Accelerating Monetisation Task Force said in a release. “When completed, the transaction will unlock substantial cash that can be reinvested to higher-return opportunities aligned with the New Keppel, while allowing us to reduce debt and also reward our shareholders.”

Keppel had begun marketing the five-storey mall, which also has three basement levels, in November of last year, with the sale of the 2011-vintage property bringing major trades of retail properties in Singapore to over $4.3 billion so far this year, according to Mingtiandi calculations.  

Neighbourhood Hub

The agreed price for i12 works out to S$1,755 ($1,378) per square foot of net lettable area, based on the mall’s 211,950 square feet (19,691 square metres) of space, with market sources estimating an investment yield of 4.5 percent.

With 83 years remaining on its 99-year leasehold, the i12 mall had a committed occupancy of 96 percent at the end of January, Keppel said, with the neighbourhood retail centre hosting a CS Fresh grocery store, the GV Katong cinema and the Core Collective i12 Katong gym, as well as an array of F&B outlets.

The transaction comes after trades of Singapore investment properties surged more than fivefold compared with year-earlier levels, per JLL, and brings Keppel’s announced disposals since October 2020 to S$14.9 billion under the Temasek-backed group’s asset monetisation strategy.

In September of last year Keppel had sold its One Paramount office park in Chennai, India to a fund managed by Nuvama and Cushman & Wakefield for around S$379 million, after having disposed of its 70 percent stake in the Saigon Sports City development in Vietnam for S$354 million the previous month.  

In April 2025 the company parted with its 42 percent interest in the Palm City residential development in Vietnam for $141 million before exiting its stake in Vietnamese developer Nam Long Group in July for S$58 million. 

Tanoto-Backed Manager

The i12 mall deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions by fund manager Altallo, which was founded in 2024 by entrepreneurs Roger Tan and Jun Hao Seah with backing from investors said to include Andre Tanoto, son of Indonesian pulp and paper billionaire Sukanto Tanoto. 

Altallo in February agreed to acquire 158 Cecil Street in Singapore’s central business district from the family of the late shopping centre tycoon Denis Jen for S$175 million. In December it bought a S$160 million portfolio of retail units in public housing estates from Lian Beng Group.

The Katong mall at 112 East Coast Road opened in 1983 and underwent refurbishment in 1995. Keppel’s involvement with i12 dates back to its entry as a minority investor in 2016 before taking full control in 2018. That year, the group acquired the remaining 77.6 percent stake from a Keppel-managed fund in a deal implying a property value of S$360 million.

After the buyout, Keppel closed the mall for an extensive renovation in 2020 and reopened it in 2022 as a “smart lifestyle destination” with 150 retail brands and services, including more than 70 new tenants.

Savills and Cushman & Wakefield jointly represented Keppel in the deal, which is expected to close during the second quarter.

Shopping in Style

Singapore’s investment market has rebounded sharply in 2026, with deal volume jumping 433 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to reach $11.5 billion, according to JLL’s latest update.

Retail has played a central role in the market surge so far this year, including CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT) agreeing earlier this week to buy the Paragon mall on Orchard Road for S$3.9 billion. Also this week, Mingtiandi reported that local private equity firm TE Capital Partners is in talks to purchase the White Sands mall in Singapore’s Pasir Ris area from Frasers Centrepoint Trust for at least S$470 million.

Earlier this month Hong Kong’s Link REIT said in has agreed to sell Swing By @ Thomson Plaza in Singapore’s Upper Thomson area for S$250 million, after Eng Tiong Realty disposed of the Holland Piazza shopping centre in Holland Village for S$100 million in March. 

In February, Frasers Property won a collective tender for a segment of The Centrepoint shopping centre on Orchard Road for S$391.9 million, with Lendlease selling its 30 percent stake in the PLQ Mall in Paya Lebar to Lendlease Global Commercial REIT for S$265.5 million during that same month.

Hines had started off the year by purchasing the Bukit Panjang Plaza mall for S$428 million, with January also seeing CapitaLand Investment announce that it was taking an undisclosed minority stake in the Clementi Mall.