SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - SPH Reit on Wednesday (July 6) announced that Mr Chua Hwee Song will resign on Friday as chief financial officer of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), the real estate investment trust's (Reit) sponsor.

According to a separate internal e-mail seen by The Business Times, SPH said that he is leaving the company to pursue his personal interests.

The company noted that Mr Chua, 54, had helped to grow its non-media business, such as the building of the company's purpose-built student accommodation portfolio across 30 properties in 18 countries.

"He also played a key role in (the) successful spin-off of the media business to SPH Media Trust and the subsequent privatisation of SPH by Cuscaden Peak," it said.

In its bourse filing, the Reit's manager said that Mr Chua has also resigned as non-executive non-independent director of SPH Reit's manager as of Wednesday.

He was formerly a member of the manager's nominating and remuneration committee and holds 3,910 SPH Reit units.

This comes after Cuscaden Peak, a consortium comprising Hotel Properties, businessman Ong Beng Seng and two Temasek-linked entities CLA and Mapletree, took SPH private and made an offer to acquire SPH Reit for 93.72 cents per unit in April this year.

On June 30, the chain offer for SPH Reit closed with valid acceptances in respect of 402.9 million units, representing about 14.36 per cent of total issued units. This brought Cuscaden and its concert parties' stake in the Reit to 61.68 per cent.

Units of SPH Reit closed down two cents, or 2.2 per cent, at 89 cents on Wednesday.