SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - Mapletree Industrial Trust's (MIT) private placement of 190.3 million new units was around 3.1 times covered, its manager announced on Friday (May 21).
The issue price was fixed at $2.696 per new unit, the top end of the price range. This represents a discount of 2.3 per cent to the volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of $2.7596 per unit for trades done on Wednesday, the last trading day before the underwriting agreement was signed.
New units from the private placement are expected to be issued on or around June 1.
Meanwhile, the issue price for MIT's non-renounceable preferential offering has been fixed at $2.64 per new unit. This represents a 4.3 per cent discount to the trust's VWAP of $2.7596 per unit for trades done on Wednesday.
A further 117.6 million new units will be issued under the preferential offering at an allotment ratio of five new units for every 100 existing units.
Total gross proceeds from the equity fund raising will amount to an estimated $823.3 million, said the manager, comprising $512.9 million from the private placement and $310.4 million from the preferential offering.
About 88.2 per cent or $726.5 million of the total gross proceeds will be used to partially finance MIT's intended US$1.32 billion (S$1.76 billion) acquisition of 29 data centres in the United States, announced Thursday.
Another 7.6 per cent of the gross proceeds or $62.2 million will be used to repay MIT's debt.
The rest will go towards fees and expenses incurred from the fund-raising exercise, as well as to fund future acquisitions or for general working capital purposes.
DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, Merrill Lynch (Singapore) and UBS' Singapore branch were the joint global coordinators and bookrunners for the equity fund raising.
To ensure fairness to holders of existing MIT units, an advanced distribution will be paid for the period from April 1 to just before the placement units are issued. This is to ensure that distributions for the period go only to existing unit holders.
The distribution amount is estimated to range between 2.11 Singapore cents and 2.31 Singapore cents. MIT's manager said it will make a further announcement on the actual quantum of the advanced distribution in due course.
Units of MIT were trading down 0.36 per cent at $2.75 as at 11.16am on Friday.
