Quoteworthy: "The investment needed to green our economy is enormous." –— Janet Yellen, US Treasury secretary, adding that climate change is an “existential risk to our future economy and way of life”
Mapletree explores US$1 bil student housing REIT IPO
Mapletree Investments, a property developer and manager, is exploring listing a student housing real estate investment trust in Singapore that could raise about US$1 billion ($1.3 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.
The company, which is owned by Singapore’s state investment fund Temasek Holdings, is in preliminary discussions with prospective advisers on the offering plan, said the people. An IPO could take place as soon as next year, one of the people said, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.
Any deal would add to the US$5.6 billion of property trust IPOs in Singapore over the last five years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. At US$1 billion, it would be the country’s biggest REIT listing since 2013 when Mapletree North Asia Commercial Trust raised US$1.4 billion, the data show.
Deliberations are ongoing and details of the offering including size and timeline could still change, the people said.
“We are constantly reviewing options and will announce accordingly if we have firm plans,” a Mapletree spokesperson said in response to a Bloomberg News query.
Mapletree owns four Singapore-listed REITs and six private equity real estate funds, according to its latest annual report. It had $60.5 billion assets under management as of the end of March last year. Its portfolio spans from residential and industrial assets to data centres, retail space and lodging in 13 markets across Asia, Europe and the US.
In 2019, Mapletree acquired two purpose-built student accommodation assets near Coventry University in the UK and completed its first student lodging development in the country. These moves took the company’s total purpose-built student accommodation assets to 50 with over 22,000 beds located across 33 cities in the UK, the US and Canada, its annual report shows. Including projects under development, the total student accommodation assets under management amount to approximately $3.6 billion.
Mapletree is looking at listing two REITs that could be backed by overseas assets in student accommodation and logistics, with a “sweet spot” for each IPO of about $2 billion, its group chief executive officer Hiew Yoon Khong said in an interview in 2019. — Bloomberg
Singapore and Hong Kong call off travel bubble
Singapore and Hong Kong called off an announcement planned for Thursday, April 22, on an air travel bubble between Asia’s two major financial hubs, according to people familiar with the matter, the second time in five months the highly anticipated arrangement appears to have run into obstacles.
No reason was immediately provided on why the announcement was postponed and a new date has not been set, said the people, who asked not to be identified as they are not authorised to speak publicly. The cancellation was initiated by the Singapore side, one of the people said.
Singapore’s Ministry of Transport and Hong Kong’s Commerce and Economic Development Bureau did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Singapore and Hong Kong have been trying to revive the bubble plans after a previously scheduled November start was shelved due to a virus flareup in Hong Kong. The new start date for the bubble was planned for May, people familiar have said, though that is now uncertain. While it is unclear what triggered the postponement of the announcement, it comes as Singapore faces new virus cases among its migrant worker community, which underpinned the city’s major outbreak last year.
Reopening to international travel is key for Singapore and Hong Kong, which do not have domestic travel markets.
Singapore Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said earlier this month that he hopes an agreement on the air travel bubble would be announced “soon”, echoing Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam’s earlier comments.
In an announcement on April 21, Singapore eased quarantine rules for those travelling to Hong Kong. Travellers from Hong Kong will have to stay in home isolation for seven days upon arriving in Singapore, down from a previous rule of 14 days in a government-chosen hotel.
There are now concerns that a resurgence of the virus in Singapore could upend the easing plans. The city, which saw a massive outbreak among its army of low-wage migrant workers last year, said on Thursday that 11 workers at Westlite Woodlands dormitory had tested positive for Covid-19.
Among them, 10 had previously been infected and recovered, said a government statement. The flareup raises fears that the virus is again circulating among the workers, who live in close conditions in accommodation segregated from the wider community. Their movements are highly restricted by the government, though the rest of the population has seen social and economic activity normalise after Singapore contained its outbreak last year. — Bloomberg
India records world’s highest one-day surge in Covid cases
India saw a record one-day jump with more than 300,000 new coronavirus infections, marking a grim milestone for the country as a deadlier second wave showing no signs of abating.
The South Asian nation, which has the world’s second-largest outbreak, reported 314,835 new cases on Thursday, April 22, pushing the total tally to almost 16 million cases. The US, which is the worst-hit nation globally, saw its peak one-day surge of 314,312 cases on Dec 21 and has only reported more than 300,000 cases on two days since the onset of the pandemic. Infections in America are now on a downward trend helped in part by aggressive vaccination.
Covid-related deaths in India jumped to 184,657. The country has administered more than 132 million vaccine doses, according to data from India’s health ministry. That is enough to cover about 4.8% of its vast 1.3 billion population, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.
The worsening outbreak threatens to derail the Indian economy that had just begun to recover after a nationwide lockdown last year pushed it into a historic recession. A new virus variant with a double mutation has also emerged locally, and concerns are growing that it is driving the fierce new wave that is overwhelming India’s hospitals and crematoriums. — Bloomberg
