Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Partners expects to place an 11-property collection of offices into a new real estate investment trust whose shares will be traded on Singapore’s stock exchange.
The buildings currently are part of the KBS Real Estate Investment Trust III, one of several nontraded REITs that the company runs. None of the collection of office towers and campus-type properties are local.
A newly formed Singapore real estate investment trust, Prime US REIT, is expected to buy the 3.4 million-square-foot portfolio for $1.2 billion; KBS-related affiliates would in turn buy about $200 million of the Singapore-based entity’s stock and continue to manage the properties.
According to a recent filing with the Securities Exchange Commission, KBS “believes that the Singapore transaction presents an excellent opportunity to monetize the 11 stabilized properties that comprise the portfolio at attractive pricing.”
Familiar Game Plan
KBS completed a similar venture a few years ago; it was one of the first REITs on Singapore’s SGX exchange to list a portfolio of office assets located in the U.S.
KBS and its affiliates have also the past few years listed bonds on Israel’s stock exchange, another first for a U.S.-based real estate investor.
The other companies in the Singapore entity include two not affiliated with KBS: Keppel Capital and Experion Holdings.
The overseas transaction could be completed this month, according to regulatory filings, which also note that the new Singapore REIT will be managed by a KBS entity indirectly owned by KBS Chief Executive Charles Schreiber Jr. and the Linda Bren 2017 Trust.
Linda Bren is the widow of former President Peter Bren, whose April death was first reported by the Business Journal.
The regulatory filings pertaining to the impending deal are the first from the company to reference the death of Bren, the brother of Irvine Co.’s Donald Bren.
