Property developers are on an M&A high: CIMB

It's becoming a ''structural theme''.

According to CIMB, M&A activities are on the rise and are becoming a structural theme for the property sector. Developers are finding the M&A route as a more viable growth path as land prices remain inflated and stocks trade at discounts to RNAV.

Since the F&N saga in 2012, there have been more M&A activities – SC Global being taken private, UE’s acquisition of WBL and most recently, UOL’s delisting proposal for PPAC.

Here's more from CIMB:

We expect more M&A activities to follow in the near- to mid-term, particularly for the small-mid caps. Candidates include Wing Tai, Ho Bee and SingLand. Demand for yield and hard assets continues to be strong.

Developers with more mature investment properties remain in a sweet spot to crystallise asset values via divestments and/or recycling into a REIT.

OUE has announced that it will launch one soon, with Mandarin Orchard and Gallery as the initial portfolio. Other potential sales in 2013 include F&N’s Changi Point to FCT, CMA’s Star Vista to CMT, KepLand’s MBFC Ph3 into Keppel REIT and GLP’s Japan portfolio into its GLP J-REIT.

Part of the capital recycled could be redistributed to shareholders and drive developer stock prices.

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