Following CLI’s investor day, Aussie press carries story on CLI acquiring Wingate
During the course of Nov 22, Lee Chee Koon, group CEO of CLI, said: “For exclusive credit we’ve developed our own team and created a collaboration with teams from Wingate in Australia, originating and supporting deals and there’s a lot of more pipeline we can integrate in Australia and Asia-Pacific.”
The firm recently introduced that it had appointed 2 senior hires to newly established roles to strengthen its talent bench and spearhead progress in its focus market. Angelo Scasserra will be the chief executive officer of CLI Australia, and Rahul Bharara will be its main investment specialist. They are assumed to join the firm in 1H2025.
In 2014, CapitaLand divested Australand Property Group, that was then grabbed by Frasers Property and has since been renamed Frasers Property Australia. During the question-and-answer session, Miguel Ko, chairperson of CLI, said that the choice to offer Australand and invest a bit more in China was prepared even before his time.
He included that the business “did not have a prediction, obviously, about China’s situation today” and did not want to talk about his predecessors’ choices. During the time, China was booming and CapitaLand had a huge competitive advantage. “That could have been a major win or a wrong action. This is not a talk no matter if my predecessors made a right or wrong decision.”
At the time, Lim Ming Yan, CapitaLand’s then-president and team chief executive officer, said that the divestment came amidst “good” market situations. Australand’s share rate additionally carried out strongly in the past few months prior to the divestment. “This divestment would certainly permit us to reapportion capital to our core businesses in Singapore and China.”
CLI also said it is going to invest as much as A$ 1 billion ($ 876.7 million) to grow funds under management (FUM) in Australia. In September, CLI shut its Australian Credit Programme (ACP). ACP is CLI’s first credit fund at A$ 265 million, supported by Asian investors.
During the course of its investor day on Nov 22, CapitaLand Investment’s (CLI) management said it is looking to expand its business in Australia.
CapitaLand offered its lasting 39.1% stake in Australand in March 2014 after partly unloading its involvement in November 2013 to enhance trading liquidity.
It is interesting that on Nov 25, the Australian Financial Review ran a story mentioning that CLI considered to get Wingate.
