SINGAPORE (REUTERS) - Property giant CapitaLand requested a halt in trading of its shares on Monday morning (March 22), pending the release of an announcement, according to a stock exchange filing.
Trading in units of its Singapore-listed real estate investment trusts (Reits), Ascott Residence Trust, Capitaland Integrated Commercial Trust, Ascendas Reit, CapitaLand China Trust and Ascendas India Trust, was also halted.
CapitaLand, which is just over 51 per cent owned by Singapore investment company Temasek, has a market value of $17.4 billion. The halted CapitaLand units have a total market value of $33.6 billion.
"CapitaLand has been looking to integrate its Reits to boost scale. The current environment could be a good time to bring all of these together," said one source familiar with Reit mergers and acquisitions.
CapitaLand, which posted its first annual loss in nearly two decades in 2020, and other developers have been facing a challenging operating environment because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Singapore's Reit sector has seen a string of consolidation deals over the past two years.
In 2019, CapitaLand completed an $11 billion cash-and-stock deal to acquire Temasek's shares in Ascendas-Singbridge, which owns logistics and industrial assets, in a deal that created Asia's largest real estate investment manager.
