Following CLI’s investor day, Aussie press carries story on CLI acquiring Wingate
CapitaLand sold off its remaining 39.1% stake in Australand in March 2014 after partially unloading its share in November 2013 to improve trading assets.
It is useful that on Nov 25, the Australian Financial Review ran a story mentioning that CLI intended to acquire Wingate.
CLI also claimed it is going to invest as much as A$ 1 billion ($ 876.7 million) to grow funds under management (FUM) in Australia. In September, CLI closed its Australian Credit Program (ACP). ACP is CLI’s maiden credit fund at A$ 265 million, supported by Asian capitalists.
Throughout the course of Nov 22, Lee Chee Koon, group CEO of CLI, said: “For nonpublic credit we have actually constructed our very own team and created a partnership with teams from Wingate in Australia, originating and signing deals and there’s a whole lot of even more pipeline we can integrate in Australia and Asia-Pacific.”
At the time, Lim Ming Yan, CapitaLand’s then-president and group chief executive officer, said that the divestment came in the middle of “beneficial” market situations. Australand’s share price also performed strongly in the past few months before the divestment. “This divestment would certainly permit us to reallocate capital to our core businesses in Singapore and China.”
During its investor day on Nov 22, CapitaLand Investment’s (CLI) management mentioned it is looking to expand its organization in Australia.
In 2014, CapitaLand divested Australand Property Group, which was then grabbed by Frasers Property and has since been relabelled Frasers Property Australia. During the question-and-answer discussion, Miguel Ko, chairman of CLI, stated that the choice to offer Australand and invest a bit more in China was generated before his time.
The business recently introduced that it had designated 2 leading hires to recently formed roles to enhance its talent bench and spearhead development in its focus market. Angelo Scasserra will be the CEO of CLI Australia, and Rahul Bharara will be its chief investment specialist. They are assumed to partner with the business in 1H2025.
He added that the company “did not have a crystal ball, certainly, about China’s condition today” and did not want to talk about his forerunners’ decisions. At that time, China was growing and CapitaLand had a substantial competitive advantage. “That could have been a significant gain or an incorrect step. This is not a comment on no matter if my predecessors made a right or wrong judgment.”
