Ascendas Property Fund Trustee, the trustee-manager of Ascendas India Trust (a-iTrust), has entered into a forward purchase agreement with Casa Grande Group to acquire its first industrial facility located at Mahindra World City, Chennai, the company said in a media release.
The project is an industrial facility with a net leasable area of approximately 0.42 million square feet. It is fully pre-leased to Pegatron Technology India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pegatron Corporation, with a 7-year lock-in period and annual escalations.
a-iTrust will also provide funding for the development of the project as part of the forward purchase arrangement. It proposes to fund the balance development of the project and upon completion and fulfilment of other key conditions, it will purchase 100% of the shares of the entity developing the project.
It also has the option to provide additional funding to develop industrial facilities of approximately 0.37 million square feet, subject to leasing milestones and other conditions being met.
Construction is expected to complete by mid-2021.
The pro-forma impact of the proposed acquisition on FY 2020 distribution per unit (DPU) is expected to be an accretion of 0.04 Singapore cents.
As a result of the acquisition of this industrial facility, a-iTrust’s committed portfolio size will increase by 1.9% from approximately 22.8 million sq ft to approximately 23.2 million sq ft.