Following CLI’s investor day, Aussie press carries story on CLI acquiring Wingate
During its investor day on Nov 22, CapitaLand Investment’s (CLI) management mentioned it is seeking to broaden its business in Australia.
CLI even claimed it will invest as much as A$ 1 billion ($ 876.7 million) to grow funds under management (FUM) in Australia. In September, CLI closed its Australian Credit Program (ACP). ACP is CLI’s first credit fund at A$ 265 million, supported by Asian clients.
It is insightful that on Nov 25, the Australian Financial Review ran a story saying that CLI intended to obtain Wingate.
At the time, Lim Ming Yan, CapitaLand’s then-president and group CEO, stated that the divestment came in the middle of “favourable” market situations. Australand’s share cost also carried out highly in the past couple of months before the divestment. “This divestment would certainly enable us to reapportion capital to our core firms in Singapore and China.”
The firm recently introduced that it had appointed two leading hires to newly established roles to enhance its talent bench and spearhead progress in its target market. Angelo Scasserra will be the CEO of CLI Australia, and Rahul Bharara will be its main investment specialist. They are assumed to sign up with the company in 1H2025.
He added that the firm “did not have a crystal ball, of course, about China’s circumstance today” and did not wish to comment on his forerunners’ decisions. At the time, China was growing and CapitaLand had a huge competitive advantage. “That could have been a major win or a wrong action. This is not a comment on whether my predecessors made a right or bad decision.”
In 2014, CapitaLand divested Australand Property Group, that was then snapped up by Frasers Property and has since been relabelled Frasers Property Australia. Throughout the question-and-answer program, Miguel Ko, chairman of CLI, claimed that the decision to sell Australand and invest a bit more in China was generated just before his time.
CapitaLand sold its remaining 39.1% risk in Australand in March 2014 after partially divesting its share in November 2013 to boost trading assets.
During the course of Nov 22, Lee Chee Koon, group CEO of CLI, stated: “For exclusive credit we have actually constructed our own group and developed a partnership with teams from Wingate in Australia, coming from and underwriting offers and there’s a lot of even more pipeline we can build in Australia and Asia-Pacific.”
