Property firm Oxley Holdings is buying the Raffles Place building Chevron House for $660 million, helping the local office market end the year with a bang.
The mainboard-listed company is acquiring the 32-storey building from Deka Singapore, a unit of Germany's DekaBank Group.
Chevron House has 27 levels of office space and five for retail outlets.
It was completed in 1993 and has direct access to Raffles Place MRT station. There are also 96 carpark spaces in the two basement levels.
Oxley intends to renovate the commercially zoned site. The office tower has a net lettable area of about 215,667 sq ft while the retail area is around 45,613 sq ft. The acquisition is expected to be completed by late March.
Mr Jeremy Lake, the executive director of capital markets at CBRE, said: "Investors continue to acknowledge the improving outlook for the Singapore office market.
"The sale of Chevron House is the last of a few major office sales in 2017 including PWC Building for $746.8million, GSH Plaza for $663.5 million... and Asia Square Tower 2 for $2.09 billion. The office investment market is likely to enjoy another active year in 2018."
Deka acquired the building from Goldman Sachs for around US$420 million in 2010. Oxley is financing the purchase through internal resources and bank borrowings and expects no impact on its financials.
Separately, the firm said it is acquiring Centra Cove from unrelated third parties Phuong Tuan Long and Teou Chun Tong Jason.
Centra Cove holds 75 per cent of the licensed charter capital of Vietnamese company Phu Thinh Land (PT Land). About 16.81 per cent of the charter capital has been paid up.
The deal will give Oxley a stake in a residential project in Dong Nai province in Vietnam alongside a state-owned construction firm.
The vendors were paid US$5.63 million (S$7.58 million) before the purchase agreement on Dec 13, with the balance to be paid upon the fulfilment of conditions. The purchase is funded by internally generated funds and bank loans.
Oxley has been active in the property market this year. Earlier in the week, it exercised options to buy all eight units of the Apartment 8 freehold development in Potong Pasir for $21.53 million. It also bought Mayfair Gardens off Dunearn Road for $311 million and 231 Pasir Panjang Road for $121 million. It is a member of the consortiums that acquired two former HUDC sites - Serangoon Ville at $499 million and Rio Casa in Hougang for $575 million.
