Singapore’s CDL to sell $2.75 bil office complex to cut debt
Major tenant Meta Platforms Inc. quit its seven floors of space at the office tower last year, and occupancy dropped to 92.4% since the end of March, compared with 94.4% in the end of last year.
An IOI representative declined to comment. CDL didn’t immediately respond to a mail query.
CDL is going to offer its 50.1% involvement in South Beach to minority owner IOI Properties Group Bhd, the person said, asking not to be recognized because the info is private. Malaysian developer IOI will have complete ownership following the deal. The deal worth the complex at about $2.75 billion, the person claimed.
The facility in Singapore’s central business district includes retail area, a 34-story office tower, and a 45-story structure property a JW Marriott Hotel.
The deal will help CDL to meet a promise to go over the roughly $600 million in divestments it made in 2024, that fell short of a $1 billion target.
The South Beach development, developed by Norman Foster’s building firm, has seen ownership shifts before. CDL bought the site for nearly $1.69 billion in 2007 along with 2 foreign partners, a unit of state-owned Dubai Globe Corp., and El-Ad Group Ltd. The worldwide economic crisis caused a years-long hold-up in construction and the two partners left the project, with IOI at some point getting a minority interest in 2011. The older Kwek resisted allowing IOI to take an equal stake so as to preserve control, according to a biography published in 2023.
CDL has been under pressure to offer properties shortly after a feud separated the Kwek family members, the richest clan in Singapore. In spite of fixing relations with his father and Chairman Kwek Leng Beng, the company’s chief executive officer Sherman Kwek recognized in April that the conflict had actually troubled shareholders’ confidence, and said that decreasing the increasing debt load is a priority.
The purchase adds to IOI’s increasing visibility in Singapore, with residential developments in addition to assets like IOI Central Boulevard Towers, a recently opened town hall office project. The Malaysia-listed firm is managed by the Lee family group, that made its fortunes from palm oil.
City Developments Ltd. agreed to resell its larger part stake in among Singapore’s most iconic office facilities, according to an individual accustomed to the subject, as the developer aims to reduce debt and restore financier confidence after a fight shook the business.
