High-priced industrial property transactions crashed 57% to $424.3m in Q1

The largest transaction was the $227.5m sale-and-leaseback deal with LTH Logistics.

Industrial transactions valued above $20m plunged 57% to $424.3m in Q1, as the sector took a heavy hit from a slowing manufacturing sector and lower demand for industrial space, according to an Edmund Tie & Co. study.

The largest transaction in Q1 was a sale-and-leaseback deal with LTH Logistics on Jurong Island valued at $227.5m ($321 psf GFA). Another notable transaction was a vacant land site for a build-to-suit project with 42,310 sqft GFA for Grab’s HQ at one-north business park by Ascendas REIT worth $84m ($682 psf site area).

The report noted that despite these conditions in the industrial property sector, the private industrial market has stabilised with slight improvements in occupancy rates thanks to a slowing net supply that fell 8% in the quarter.

Occupancy rates of multi-user factory, single-user factory, business parks and all industrial spaces went up 0.3%, 0.4%, 0.9% and 0.3%, respectively. Only warehouses saw a decline by 0.4%.

Demand and supply for warehouses reversed from negative to positive territory as net supply outpaces demand. This was driven by the take-up of recently completed warehouses underpinned by demand from e-commerce and logistics services.

Demand and occupancy for business parks continued to increase, especially from technology and R&D companies and firms that do not require a presence in the CBD.

Meanwhile, rental rates have remained flat, with some increases for first-storey multi-user factory, hi-tech industrial and business park spaces of between 1% and 1.5%.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia