The country’s favorable tax regime and well-established legal system made it particularly appealing for international investment trusts. Being commercially flexible and open to tweaking its regulations has allowed Singapore to continue to lead in the area, according to Ee Kean Wong, capital markets partner at WongPartnership LLP.
SINGAPORE (Feb 23): Singapore may be tiny by geographical size, but its sway in the property management industry is anything but small.
Since the city-state saw the first sale of a real estate investment trust in 2002, Singapore has transformed itself to a global listing center of such firms. It has pocketed 41 REIT IPOs, of which seven foreign-currency-denominated ones are the most globally, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. In comparison, Hong Kong – the world’s top initial public offering venue last year – has just 11.
