SINGAPORE (June 15): Alpha Investment Partners, the private fund management arm under Keppel Capital, along with PT Asuransi Jiwa Manulife Indonesia, a subsidiary of Manulife Financial Corporation, and PT Mega Manunggal Property (MMP), have entered into a venture which will jointly acquire and manage high-quality logistics properties in Indonesia, on Monday.
The venture has an initial target size of US$200 million (S$278.5 million). It includes investments from Keppel-MMP Indonesia Logistics Fund Private Limited and an Indonesian parallel fund (the Fund), as well as co-investment capital from Manulife.
Alpha will be the investment manager of the Venture, while MMP, a listed and leading logistics space provider in Indonesia, will be the strategic advisor to Alpha and property manager of the Venture's logistics properties.
As part of the agreements, the venture intends to acquire stakes in four stabilised logistics assets with a total net lettable area of over 163,000 square metres, and an occupancy of over 96%, in Greater Jakarta from MMP as its initial portfolio. The assets serve established tenants in the consumer goods, logistics and e-commerce industries, such as Unilever, Li & Fung and DHL.
So far, the venture has received initial capital commitments of approximately US$93 million (S$129.5 million) from venture partners, including PT Asuransi Jiwa Manulife Indonesia.
“With Indonesia’s growing middle-class population driving the rapid growth in consumption and e-commerce, coupled with the limited supply of modern logistics facilities in Jakarta, the Indonesian logistics property sector is seeing strong demand,” says Alvin Mah, CEO of Alpha.
“We are very happy to partner with two industry leaders, Manulife and MMP, for this Venture, which will allow us to capture opportunities arising from this evolving landscape, and to offer our venture partners exposure to the high growth potential of the logistics property sector in Southeast Asia’s largest economy,” Mah added.
“By setting up this platform, MMP has just taken its first step in implementing an asset light strategy to recycle capital from its stabilised portfolio. We are very pleased to collaborate with Alpha and Manulife, two of the world’s leading institutions, as it will not only enable us to monetise our assets but also offer capital sustainability to support MMP in capturing opportunities in the growing modern logistics property market in Indonesia,” says Bonny Budi Setiawan, CEO of MMP.
“We are thrilled to partner with Alpha and MMP for our first real estate investment in Indonesia. The quality of the assets is well regarded and, along with the country’s positive long-term macro and demographics prospects, this acquisition fits well with our long-term investment strategy for the Asia Pacific market and will surely bring added value to us and to Indonesia in the long run,” say Ryan Charland, president director and CEO of Manulife Indonesia, and Kenny Lim, senior managing director and head of Asia real estate investments for Manulife.
As at 9.02am, shares in Keppel Corporation were changing hands 1.2% down, at $5.97.
