Following CLI’s investor day, Aussie press carries story on CLI acquiring Wingate
The company recently announced that it had designated two senior hires to recently created duties to strengthen its talent bench and spearhead progress in its target market. Angelo Scasserra will be the CEO of CLI Australia, and Rahul Bharara is going to be its chief investment official. They are projected to join the company in 1H2025.
At the time, Lim Ming Yan, CapitaLand’s then-president and group chief executive officer, stated that the divestment came in the middle of “favourable” industry situations. Australand’s share rate additionally performed highly in the past couple of months prior to the divestment. “This divestment would certainly enable us to reapportion capital to our core businesses in Singapore and China.”
CLI additionally claimed it is going to invest approximately A$ 1 billion ($ 876.7 million) to increase funds under management (FUM) in Australia. In September, CLI shut its Australian Credit Program (ACP). ACP is CLI’s maiden credit fund at A$ 265 million, supported by Asian investors.
CapitaLand sold its remaining 39.1% risk in Australand in March 2014 after partially unloading its involvement in November 2013 to improve trading liquidity.
In 2014, CapitaLand unloaded Australand Property Group, that was then grabbed by Frasers Property and has since been renamed Frasers Property Australia. Throughout the question-and-answer discussion, Miguel Ko, chairman of CLI, said that the decision to sell Australand and invest even more in China was made before his time.
During the course of Nov 22, Lee Chee Koon, group CEO of CLI, said: “For private credit we have actually built our very own team and developed a partnership with teams from Wingate in Australia, coming from and supporting deals and there’s a lot of even more pipeline we can build in Australia and Asia-Pacific.”
It is interesting that on Nov 25, the Australian Financial Review ran a story saying that CLI planned to obtain Wingate.
He added that the company “did not have a prediction, obviously, about China’s situation today” and did not want to discuss his predecessors’ decisions. At that time, China was growing and CapitaLand had a big competitive advantage. “That could have been a major win or a wrong move. This is not a comment on whether my predecessors made a right or wrong choice.”
During the course of its investor day on Nov 22, CapitaLand Investment’s (CLI) management stated it is wanting to broaden its company in Australia.
