Bond Market News

Hong Kong’s logistics real estate player ESR Cayman announced that it will acquire 100% of the integrated real estate fund manager ARA Asset Management for $5.2bn. The acquisition will see ESR Cayman buy all of ARA’s share capital with $4.7bn in new ESR shares and vendor loan notes plus $519mn in cash, partly funded by a $250mn share placement to SMBC. After the acquisition, the combined entity will have an AUM of $129bn, making it the world’s third largest listed real estate asset manager. ARA is the largest real asset manager in the APAC region with an AUM of $95bn. ESR Cayman said that 80% of the combined entity will be in “new economy” real estate like logistics and data centres, while more than 50% of its AUM will come from perpetual and core capital vehicles, including 14 listed REITs. ARA, which owns a controlling stake in Logos, a fully-integrated logistics and data centre real estate developer and fund manager similar to ESR, will add to overall synergies.

ESR Cayman’s bonds were slightly higher with its SGD 5.65% Perp up 0.2 to 100.97, yielding 5.4%

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