AEW Sells Singapore Office Tower to Tuan Sing for $469M

AEW Sells Singapore Office Tower to Tuan Sing for 9M

Westgate connects directly to the Jurong East MTR station (Image: Sun Venture)

Singapore continues to stand out as a hotspot for commercial property transactions with an AEW fund agreeing to sell an office tower in the city’s Jurong East area to local developer Tuan Sing for S$600 million ($469.0 million).

A unit of Tuan Sing signed a share purchase agreement on Friday to buy the companies that own the Westgate Tower, according to a stock exchange filing, with market sources identifying the seller as an entity controlled by the AEW Value Investors Asia IV fund.

The deal, which shows a 12 percent markdown from the S$680 million AEW paid to acquire the Jurong East office building in 2022, provides Tuan Sing with an opportunity to sell rooms and floors in the 305,000 square foot (28,300 square metre) property on a strata title basis, and comes as investors circle major commercial deals in Singapore following a first-half investment surge.

“Its strong occupancy, established tenant base and strategic location in the Jurong Lake District will further strengthen the Group’s recurring income base, while its strata-titled structure provides us with flexibility in how we manage and position the asset over the longer term,” Tuan Sing chief executive William Liem said of Westgate in the statement.

The deal follows major Singapore commercial property sales in recent weeks including Hong Kong’s Wharf REIC selling Wheelock Place and Scotts Square in the Orchard Road area for a combined S$1.4 billion and BlackRock teaming up with Malaysia’s YTL Hotels to buy a hotel in the Chinatown area from Frasers Properties for S$330 million.

90% Occupancy

Forming the office element of the Westgate complex, which also includes a shopping mall which connects directly to the Jurong East MRT station in Singapore’s Jurong Lake District, Tuan Sing’s new prize opened in 2014.

Tuan Sing chief executive William Liem

At the stated compensation, Tuan Sing is paying the equivalent of S$1,967 per square foot for the Westgate Tower, against the S$2,230 per square foot AEW paid in 2022 for the 20-storey property at the intersection of Gateway Drive and Boon Lay Way.

Certified as Green Mark Platinum under Singapore’s regimen for sustainable buildings, office tenants at Westgate Tower include Mercedes-Benz, Daimler Truck South East Asia and French chemicals company Arkema. The building is around 90 percent committed, according to Tuan Sing.

The tower stands on a 99-year leasehold site which commenced its land tenure in August 2011, according to the filing, and is titled as 295 strata units.

The agreed price is 6.25 percent below a S$640 million valuation by Edmund Tie & Company as of 1 October. JLL is understood to have advised AEW on the sale, with completion expected by 1 December.

Not Ready for Prime Time

The Singapore government has promoted the Jurong Lake district as the city-state’s largest business district outside the city centre, although the area has yet to become a hub of investment deals.

A 2023 government tender to develop a 6.5 hectare (16 acre) mixed-use site in Jurong Lake District ended, with the Urban Redevelopment Authority closing the tender without an award after only a single consortium offered bids. The agency is now tendering a pared down version of the project, with bids due 17 November.

AEW’s June 2022 deal to acquire Westgate Tower came just four months after Lendlease Global Commercial REIT purchased full ownership of the Jem complex next door in a deal which valued that office and retail property at S$2,329 per square foot.

In August of last year the Singapore-listed trust sold the office portion of Jem to Keppel-managed funds for S$462 million, representing a 2 percent increase in value over three years of ownership, according to Mingtiandi calculations based on Lendlease Global Commercial REIT statements.

Singapore Deal Flow

The sale comes as investors pile into Singapore property, with first-half transaction volume jumping 259 percent from a year earlier to $10.3 billion, according to MSCI data, with the information provider projecting that this year could break the 2019 record for commercial property sales in the country.

The deal momentum has continued in the second half with Hongkong Land having agreed to buy Wheelock Place from Wharf REIC for S$1.1 billion in July, before entities linked to local tycoon Raj Kumar signed a deal in September to buy the Scotts Square mall on Scotts Road for S$310 million.

Earlier this month OUE REIT confirmed that it is in exclusive talks to sell the One Raffles Place commercial complex to Malaysia’s IOI Properties and CapitaLand Investment, with market sources estimating a S$2.4 billion value for that transaction.

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