CapitaLand doubles down on its Southeast Asia real estate portfolio with investment in Thailand logistics to create Thailand's largest industrial park of its kind. The Thailand investment, a major advanced logistics park is set to become the nation's largest when construction concludes in 2026. CapitaLand, with regional real estate AUM of $65 billion, and $133 globally, is already a major player. Other investments include logistics properties in Japan and self-storage acquisitions in Singapore.
CapitaLand Investments Limited ("CLI" or "CapitaLand") has had a big start to 2024. This month it closed a new $115 million core logistics fund aimed at industrial investments in Japan. The fund LPs are a handful of Japanese institutional investors and the fund has already been deployed purchasing logistics assets in Tokyo and Osaka. CLI will continue to manage the properties on behalf of the fund with its JV partner, Mitsui & Co, Ltd.
CapitaLand also acquired in February two industrial properties in Singapore through its self-storage platform, Extra Space Asia. The properties have a collective GLA of around 30,000 square meters (i.e., 323,000 square feet) moving the GP closer to its goal of having 93,000 square meters (i.e., 1,000,000 million square feet) of self-storage space by the end of Q1 2024. It is already one of the largest in Asia with more than 80 facilities.
CapitaLand is a Singaporean real estate giant with a real estate AUM in the Southeast Asia region exceeding $65 billion. Only GLP beats it boasting $80.5 billion of real estate AUM in Asia Pacific. CapitaLand is ahead of Australia's Charter Hall Group ($56.2 billion), ESR Cayman Limited ($45.7 billion), Temasek Holdings ($45.3 billion) also based in Singapore, Blackstone ($42.9 billion), Nuveen Real Estate ($35.8 billion), Brookfield Asset Management ($33.4 billion), and PGIM Real Estate ($33.2 billion).
In Thailand, the investor made its first major investment in Thailand through the purchase of a 20-hectare greenfield site in Bangkok which is named OMEGA1 Bang Na. According to Mordor Intelligence, the Thai freight and logistics market is expected to grow at a 6% CAGR between 2022 and 2027. The investment amount is undisclosed, but the capital came from its CapitaLand SEA Logistics Fund ("CLSF") which had its first close in February 2023. Initial equity commitments amounted to $270 million with major investors being CapitaLand Investments, Ally Logistics Property (Taiwanese industrial developer), and Pruksa Holdings (Thai Industrial developer). The fund's mandate is to develop and manage advanced logistics infrastructure in Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The OMEGA 1 Bang Na project is located along the Bang Na Trat Highway in Samut Prakan Province, a prime logistics cluster within Bangkok. It will be a state-of-the-art automated logistics campus with a GLA of 2.47 million square feet (i.e., 230,000 square meters) capable of accommodating more than 150,000 pallet positions. It will be Thailand's largest standalone warehouse and operated by the JV and investment partner, Ally Logistics Partners. Construction is scheduled to commence Q1 2024 with phase 1 launching in 2026.
