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CapitaLand sets up $1b China fund

(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-17 09:22

CapitaLand Ltd, Southeast Asia's biggest developer, has set up a $1 billion private equity fund to invest in commercial property projects in China as retail sales and demand for office space surge.

Raffles City China Fund will initially own the developer's 55.9 percent stake in Shanghai's Raffles City property and three of its projects under the same brand name being built in Beijing, Chengdu and Hangzhou, the company said in a statement to the Singapore stock exchange yesterday. The assets are valued at about $2 billion, CapitaLand said.

CapitaLand, which runs more than 70 malls and has built apartments in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, made about 30 percent of its revenue in China last year, up from 20 percent in 2006. The fund will free up capital for the developer to pursue new projects in markets where the economy and the country's retail sales grew the fastest in about a decade.

"It will provide CapitaLand with the ammunition and deep pockets to go into China and get the best deals," said Donald Han, Singapore-based managing director of Cushman & Wakefield Pte, a real estate consulting company. "There is a huge, emerging middle class that will bring about higher consumption and help support China in the next few years."

China's economy may grow 10.1 percent this year, following the 11.9 percent growth in 2007 that was the fastest in 13 years.

The country's retail sales rose 21.6 percent in May, close to the fastest pace in nine years, as the strongest earthquake in half a century, a stock market slump and the scrapping of a week-long holiday failed to cool demand.

The Raffles City projects are named after CapitaLand's Singapore downtown development that includes a shopping mall, office tower and two hotels.

"As China's urbanization gathers pace and its middle class grows in tandem with the improving economy, demand for integrated developments will continue to rise," Lim Ming Yan, CEO of CapitaLand's operations in China, said in the statement.

The Singapore developer will hold 50 percent of the fund, while financial institutions and pension funds in Asia, Europe and North America will own the remaining stake, the statement said. It didn't name the other investors.