Income@Raffles Acquired By China’s Bright Ruby Resources For More Than S$1bil
SINGAPORE – Income@Raffles, a 37-storey office building at 16 Collyer Quay, has changed hands for over S$1billion in late-June, reported The Business Times on Friday evening (1 July, SGT).
The price translates to slightly more than S$3,600 based on the 999-year leasehold commercial property’s net leasable area (NLA) of 276,451 sq ft.
The seller is NTUC Income Insurance Co-operative, while the buyer is a Chinese company controlled by the Du family, Bright Ruby Resources, which also holds Pullman Singapore Orchard (previously known as Grand Park Orchard).
On Friday, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) announced that it had served as the lead advisor for NTUC Income’s fund manager Mercatus Strategic Investment Management, while CBRE is believed to have introduced Bright Ruby Resources to the seller.
Previously called the Hitachi Tower, Income@Raffles comes with 22,787 sq ft of retail space on the 1st and 2nd floor and 253,664 sq ft of office space. The commercial property also contains 148 car parking lots in the basement levels.
Given that the office building’s existing gross floor area (GFA) of 415,445 sq ft is 14 times its site, there is an untapped GFA of almost 30,000 sq ft as the commercial-zoned land has plot ratio of 15.
Apart from being renovated in 2019, the commercial property is linked to the Raffles Place MRT station via sheltered walkways passing through 30 Raffles Place (former Chevron House).
Income@Raffles was put up for sale via a closed expression of interest exercise (EOI), which had its initial closing in early-June. The EOI exercise attracted about 10 bids, of which 3 parties were shortlisted to improve their offers.
Apart from Bright Ruby Resources, the other two shortlisted parties were a joint venture (JV) comprising BlackRock and Singapore property player City Developments Ltd (CDL). The other is Indonesian business mogul Sukanto Tanoto of the Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) group.
Singapore’s office sale market has been hot this year. Sun Venture is divesting the Westgate Tower near Jurong East MRT station to AEW for S$680 million. The former is also in exclusive due diligence in a view to acquire the recently refurbished Bugis Junction Towers.
