Keppel Capital, a Singapore-based asset management arm of Keppel Corporation, has entered into control over one of the Australian Unity’s funds, the AU Office Fund (AOF), after buying a half stake in the fund’s responsible entity, Australian Unity Investment Real Estate (AUIREL).
According to the announcement made to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), all the issued capital in AUIREL was sold to a joint venture company owned 50:50 by Australian Unity and Keppel Capital.
Earlier last week, US investor Starwood Capital announced its intention to make a conditional all-cash off-market takeover for the AU Office Fund’s all outstanding units for $2.98 per unit.
At the same time, Australian Unity said that investors representing an aggregate of 16.7% of AOF units were in favour of the intended offer and entered into pre-bid agreements with Starwood.
On Monday, Starwood Capital Group made an announcement to the ASX in which the firm said that to the extent the sale of RE of the fund would result in the failure of a defeating condition of Starwood’s announced bid offer, based solely on the information which AUIREL disclosed last week, it would not rely on the RE sale to lapse the AOF bid.
Starwood also confirmed it would continue to pursue its AOF bid which, according to the company, represented an attractive opportunity for all unitholders to achieve liquidity.
