Following CLI’s investor day, Aussie press carries story on CLI acquiring Wingate
The company recently introduced that it had appointed 2 senior hires to recently created duties to enhance 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 chief investment officer. They are assumed to partner with the firm in 1H2025.
CapitaLand sold its lasting 39.1% stake in Australand in March 2014 after partly unloading its stake in November 2013 to improve trading liquidity.
During the course of Nov 22, Lee Chee Koon, group chief executive officer of CLI, claimed: “For exclusive credit we’ve developed our own group and created a collaboration with teams from Wingate in Australia, originating and signing offers and there’s a lot of more pipeline we can build in Australia and Asia-Pacific.”
He added that the business “did not have a prediction, obviously, about China’s situation these days” and did not wish to comment on his predecessors’ decisions. At that time, China was thriving and CapitaLand had a substantial competitive advantage. “That could have been a significant gain or a wrong action. This is not a talk whether my predecessors made a best or incorrect judgment.”
It is useful that on Nov 25, the Australian Financial Review ran a story mentioning that CLI considered to get Wingate.
During the course of its investor day on Nov 22, CapitaLand Investment’s (CLI) management stated it is looking to expand its business in Australia.
At the time, Lim Ming Yan, CapitaLand’s then-president and team chief executive officer, stated that the divestment came amidst “beneficial” industry situations. Australand’s share price likewise performed strongly in the past few months prior to the divestment. “This divestment would permit us to reallocate capital to our core firms in Singapore and China.”
In 2014, CapitaLand unloaded Australand Property Group, which was then snapped up by Frasers Property and has since been relabelled Frasers Property Australia. During the question-and-answer discussion, Miguel Ko, chairperson of CLI, said that the decision to sell Australand and invest more in China was generated before his time.
CLI also claimed it will invest approximately A$ 1 billion ($ 876.7 million) to grow funds under management (FUM) in Australia. In September, CLI finalized its Australian Credit Programme (ACP). ACP is CLI’s first credit fund at A$ 265 million, backed by Asian clients.
