Singapore's Frasers Property to take REIT private in US$1.1bil deal
KUALA LUMPUR: Thai business magnate Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi's Frasers Property offered to take its Singapore-listed hospitality real estate investment trust (REIT) private on Wednesday in a deal valuing it at S$1.37 billion (US$1.1 billion).
The parent company has offered S$0.710 apiece for every share it does not already own to shareholders of Frasers Hospitality Trust.
The offer represents a 6.8 per cent premium to the unit's last closing price.
The REIT, which debuted on the Singapore Exchange in 2014, manages a portfolio of 14 hospitality assets—including hotels and serviced residences—across nine cities in Asia, Australia, and Europe. It has a market capitalization of S$1.28 billion with its investment properties valued at S$1.76 billion as of December 2024.
Frasers Property holds a 24.23 per cent stake in Frasers Hospitality Trust, while TCC Group owns a 36.72 per cent stake in the REIT.
TCC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
Queues at VEP application centres in Singapore, Johor Baru after news of enforcement from July 1
SINGAPORE/JOHOR BARU: Waves of Singapore motorists showed up at Vehicle Entry Permit (VEP) application and installation centres in Singapore and Johor Baru a day after Malaysia announced that enforcement of the VEP will start on July 1. Singapore-registered vehicles entering the country from that date without a valid VEP will be fined RM300 (S$91), Malaysia's Transport Minister Anthony Loke said on Wednesday (June 4). The drivers will have to pay the fine and complete their VEP registration before leaving Malaysia. On Thursday (June 5), motorists showed up at VEP centres in Woodlands in Singapore and Danga Bay in Johor Baru because they needed help with signing up on the online portal or had problems activating their radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. VEP-registered vehicles need to have RFID tags installed and activated in order to make payments for Malaysian expressway tolls and the road charge when entering Johor via the two land checkpoints. Singapore-registered vehicles entering the country from July 1 without a valid VEP will be fined RM300. - Photo: ST The counters in Malaysia are operated by TCSens, Malaysia's ministry-appointed vendor for handling VEP registrations; while the one in Singapore is run by My VEP, a separate company, in collaboration with TCSens. Between 9.30am and 10.30am, around 40 people were seen queueing outside the My VEP office in Woodlands Industrial Park. They include motorists collecting their VEP RFID tags and those needing help with applications. Those without appointment slots were turned away. Around lunchtime at the TCSens inquiry centre in Danga Bay, more than 60 motorists were seen queueing to seek assistance from staff to troubleshoot their VEP registrations. The centre allows walk-in inquiries. Latiff Saleh, 64, who did not have an appointment, left the Woodlands centre in Singapore without getting any assistance. He needed help to terminate the existing VEP registration of his car, which was tagged to its previous owner, as he was not able to do so online. On hearing the June 4 announcement, he tried to log in to the VEP portal to restart the application process, but faced difficulties. He had not decided whether to try his luck at Danga Bay soon, or wait for the rush in Woodlands to subside before getting an appointment. Inquiries had been decreasing prior to the June 4 announcement, and appointment slots had been available daily since March, said Ng Poh Heng, manager of My VEP. But by the morning of June 5, all the slots until June 20 had been taken up, checks by The Straits Times found. Esther Chua, 50, received her VEP RFID tag earlier in 2025, but found that it could not be fitted to her car as required. The finance executive did not get around to exchanging the tag until after hearing the latest news. 'The Malaysian side seems to keep changing their mind, so I didn't feel the need to get it fixed (so soon),' she said at Woodlands on June 5. The latest move to enforce the VEP comes eight years after the plan was first mooted in 2017. Its implementation was shelved twice, in 2019 and again in 2020. It was rolled out in October 2024, but foreign vehicles found without valid VEPs were given reminders to get registered and not fined. At the Danga Bay inquiry centre on June 5, waiting times were long, with motorists saying they began queueing from as early as 6am for the counter to open at 9am. One of the motorists, a 76-year-old Singaporean retiree who wanted to be known only as Chong, said that his VEP application was rejected in October 2024 because it was missing insurance documents. He said he never heard back after he replied with the documents. 'Suddenly, they said they are going to enforce (the requirement) this July. This is very troublesome,' he said, adding that the announcement on June 4 caught him by surprise. Singaporean interior designer Andrew Ho, 44, who arrived in Danga Bay at 9am, waited five hours to get help from TCSens staff. His VEP RFID tag could not be read at the Malaysian customs gantry. A TCSens staff member at Danga Bay told ST that by 2.30pm, he had already assisted more than 100 motorists, compared with the daily number of 130 cars that the centre had handled in the past few months. Loke told reporters on June 4 that foreign-registered private vehicles have had ample time to be VEP-registered since the call to do so was made in May 2024. The minister added that 231,018 Singapore-registered private individually owned vehicles have signed up for the VEP, with 15 per cent yet to activate the RFID tags. Meanwhile, skip-the-queue VEP services in Singapore are seeing an uptick in inquiries. These services apply for the VEP on the motorists' behalf, saving drivers the hassle of making the online application or queueing at the counters. Derrick Heng, director of Radiant VEP, which offers skip-the-queue services, said inquiries have spiked since the latest announcement, after getting around 10 queries daily from the beginning of 2025. 'We received about 30 inquiries on June 4, and our office (in Kaki Bukit) was full, with motorists coming in to apply for the permits at the last minute,' he said. Jason Koay, director of accounting and secretarial firm Bizwise Management, which advertises its VEP application assistance service on Carousell, said he helped with 50 applications on June 5, up from a norm of two to three inquiries a day since March. A TCSens spokesman urged Singaporean motorists to register promptly for the VEP via the website, as it is anticipating a surge in applications and appointments at its four centres in Johor Bahru and Singapore. 'Motorists must ensure that the VEP RFID tags are securely fixed on their vehicles and activated for use once they have received them,' he added. - The Straits Times/ANN
Barnama
3 hours ago
- Barnama
Trump Says Discussed With Xi 'Some Of Intricacies' Of US-China Trade Deal
WASHINGTON, June 5 (Bernama-Sputnik/RIA Novosti) -- US President Donald Trump said he discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping "some of the intricacies" of the US-China trade deal during a phone call on Thursday. "I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal. The call lasted approximately one and a half hours," Trump wrote on Truth Social, according to Sputnik/ RIA Novosti. Chinese and US teams will meet "shortly" at a location that will be determined later, the US president said, adding that the US will be represented by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
The Star
4 hours ago
- The Star
PETRONAS not exiting Canada, says group CEO
President and group CEO Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Kamadjaja Aziz KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has reiterated that the company is not exiting Canada. "Canada is not on our exit radar. We're not exiting Canada. We are constantly entertaining overtures and proposals. "That is going to be the natural course of business and it (Canada) is a very resource-endowed geography,' president and group chief executive officer Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz said at an editors' briefing here today. Tengku Muhammad Taufik said, in fact, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is coming on stream from Canada, with the first cargo in a couple of weeks. He said there will be a regular shipping out of LNG from Canada, which is at 25 per cent. "We have 53 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of reserves. It is strategically positioned between that coast of Canada and Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and even China. "Some other LNG routes are compromised by geopolitical hostility… That is another advantage. That was the rationale to do this. We built that node. We wanted to make sure it's strategically positioned, having locational advantage. Petronas hopes to have more engagements and constructive dialogues for the national oil firm to activate additional LNG leverage in Canada. "We hope that the Canadian (new) government will be more appreciative and supportive of it becoming a new, cleaner energy source for the rest of the developing world,' he added. Tengku Muhammad Taufik stressed that it was crucial for Petronas to preserve its position in market share in the LNG space in Canada while also looking at how to build its upstream portfolio effectively. Responding on a question whether Petronas will look to liquidate some assets or diversify, Tengku Muhammad Taufik said Petronas would continue its asset rationalisation to keep its operations lean. He noted that the divestment exercise was done in Argentina as Petronas could not make its assets worked in the country and found an interested party to acquire them. In April this year, Buenos Aires-based Vista Energy has reportedly acquired Petronas' 50 per cent stake in the La Amarga Chica oil field in Argentina's Vaca Muerta shale basin for about US$1.5 billion (RM7.1 billion). The second-biggest crude oil producer in the area will pay US$900 million upfront for the stake, with one-third of that sum financed through a loan from Banco Santander SA, while the remainder will be paid in two instalments in 2029 and 2030. - Bernama
