BT : MapletreeLog completes purchase of 2 properties

Business Times - 05 Jun 2010

MapletreeLog completes purchase of 2 properties

MAPLETREE Logistics Trust (MLT) has completed the acquisition of two properties - one in Vietnam for US$6.4 million and the other in Japan for 1.49 billion yen (S$22.8 million).

The purchase price and other acquisition costs were fully funded by debt, given the relatively small size of the acquisitions, MLT said.

The Vietnam property, called Mapletree Logistics Centre, is the trust's first property in Vietnam.

MLT bought the warehouse, in the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park in Binh Doung Province, from its sponsor Mapletree Investments.

Vietnam is a 'market of immense opportunities', MLT said when it announced the purchase last month.

'The (trust's) manager sees Vietnam as an important key emerging market in Asia, with its competitive cost structure and burgeoning middle-class population, which presents attractive growth prospects,' MLT said in a May 31 statement.

'With growing demand for logistics space in Vietnam, the manager believes Vietnam will provide opportunities to our valued partners and tenants.' it added.

The second property, a warehouse in Japan called Sendai Centre, was also bought from Mapletree Investments. It is in Sendai City in Japan's Miyagi Prefecture.

The net property income yield of Sendai Centre is 6.8 per cent, which is higher than the implied property yield of MLT's existing Japan portfolio of 5 per cent, MLT said on May 31.

MLT's counter closed unchanged at 83 cents yesterday.

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