Singapore's second-largest property developer City Developments Ltd (CDL) said on Tuesday it plans to raise about $1.1 billion from a group of investors and banks including Blackstone Group LP to fund global expansion.
The company will raise S$750 million ($572 million) from three investors including Blackstone and another S$750 million in loans from Singapore's top two lenders, DBS Group Holdings Ltd and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.
The move is part of a plan by the company to broaden its revenue by creating investment products linked to its real estate assets, Chief Executive Grant Kelley said. CDL plans to use part of the funds to finance overseas expansion including in Japan, the United States and China.
"Product expansion is really in some senses critical because for many of our investors, they want to see a diversification of income streams," Kelley said in an interview.
"If you look at our balance sheet, we actually are very cash rich."
The company will launch a so-called "profit participating security" giving the investors fixed returns of 5 percent a year for five years plus rights to the cashflow of its Quayside Collection of properties in Singapore's Sentosa island.
Blackstone will invest S$367 million in the security, CIMB Bank S$102 million and City Developments' Astoria Holdings Ltd unit putting another S$281 million.
CDL said in the filing it plans no listing for the profit sharing security. In the future similar products could be listed, though, as investors become more accustomed to the structure.
"In a few years you will see products like this probably have a wider appreciation amongst institutional and retail investors, but you need to start with a smaller group where you can do this in a nimble fashion," said Kishore Moorjani, who heads Blackstone's Tactical Opportunities Group in Asia.
