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Published May 26, 2011

Anson House sold for $148m to ING fund

By KALPANA RASHIWALA


(SINGAPORE) Anson House has been sold for $148 million or $1,916 per square foot of net lettable area to a property fund managed by ING Real Estate.

Savills Singapore is understood to have brokered the sale through a private treaty deal.

The office block was sold by a private high net worth individual investor who picked up the property in 2009 for $85 million from a fund managed by Australia's Macquarie Bank. The latter had paid $129.5 million for the office block in 2007.

Anson House, a 13-storey building completed in 1999, has 103 carpark lots (on the second to fourth levels). The property is on a site with a remaining lease of about 85 years and has net lettable area (NLA) of about 77,244 square feet.

The property is 96 per cent occupied.

Based on rents currently being paid by tenants, the net yield on the $148 million transaction is said to be about 3.8 per cent.

Tenants in the office block are said to include GE Capital, ArcelorMittal Singapore and United Technologies International Operations.

Other office investment sales deals this year include One Finlayson Green and Capital Square.

One Finlayson Green, a freehold office block near Raffles Place MRT Station, was sold for $227 million or about $2,524 psf on its NLA of about 89,950 sq ft.

Capital Square at Church Street was sold by Ergo Insurance Group to Alpha Investment Partners' Macro Trends Fund and NTUC Income for about $2,300 psf or $889 million, making it the biggest Singapore office transaction so far this year.

Singapore Technologies Building at Lim Teck Kim Road also changed hands this year for $146 million or $1,476 psf based on the NLA of about 98,906 sq ft.

The new owner of the 13-storey freehold building is Genting Singapore subsidiary Resorts World Properties. Given its proximity to the Resorts World Sentosa Integrated Resort (IR), the property is intended to cater for the IR support departments to be consolidated in a single location.