The BlackRock organisation which owns Asia Square Tower 1 is due to come to the end of its lifespan in just two years. Thus, any income deal set up by the seller is only going to be valid until this point. Once the funding has run dry, there will be no party left responsible for maintaining it. According to Bloomberg, CapitaLand rejected talks because it could not settle on some aspects of the proposed deal. This is the information which is hitting the market from company insiders, but many are refusing to be named for fear of repercussions. It seems that CapitaLand was trying to put together a new source of funding, in order to purchase the Asia Square site outright. It wanted to invest a sum of its own (an independent investment), but also keep NBIM on board as an important shareholder.
Yet, whilst these talks were ongoing, it was also keeping an eye out for alternative parties. This is something which can be difficult, given the current market strength, but CapitaLand seemed keen to follow this course anyway. Nevertheless, according to a market expert, the nature of the CapitaLand statement indicates that the developer might not have completely pulled out of talks. It is possible that discussions have simply reached a stalemate, but could still get back on track. A spokesperson for CapitaLand was asked to comment on the situation, but politely declined. According to the chief property executive at BlackRock, “There has been a notable amount of international interest in Asia Square, so we are currently trying to determine the best possible deal for all of our potential investors.”
He also said, “The site is a premium Grade-A office property in Singapore. In fact, it is usually talked about as being one of the finest office developments in the whole country, so we expect a great sale.” As aforementioned, Google is set to move into Tower 1 soon. There it will join other high profile tenants like Citi and Julius Baer.