Following CLI’s investor day, Aussie press carries story on CLI acquiring Wingate
The business recently announced that it had appointed two top hires to newly formed duties to reinforce its talent bench and spearhead growth in its focus market. Angelo Scasserra will be the chief executive officer of CLI Australia, and Rahul Bharara is going to be its main investment specialist. They are assumed to join the business in 1H2025.
He added that the business “did not have a crystal ball, obviously, about China’s situation nowadays” and did not want to comment on his forerunners’ choices. During the time, China was thriving and CapitaLand had a big competitive advantage. “That could have been a major win or a wrong step. This is not a talk no matter if my predecessors made an ideal or bad decision.”
CapitaLand offered its remaining 39.1% risk in Australand in March 2014 after partially unloading its stake in November 2013 to strengthen trading liquidity.
In the course of its investor day on Nov 22, CapitaLand Investment’s (CLI) management mentioned it is wanting to broaden its business in Australia.
In 2014, CapitaLand divested Australand Property Group, that was then snapped up by Frasers Property and has since been renamed Frasers Property Australia. Throughout the question-and-answer discussion, Miguel Ko, chairman of CLI, said that the decision to sell Australand and invest a bit more in China was generated before his time.
At the time, Lim Ming Yan, CapitaLand’s then-president and group chief executive officer, said that the divestment came amid “good” industry situations. Australand’s share price also performed strongly in the past few months prior to the divestment. “This divestment would certainly enable us to reallocate capital to our core businesses in Singapore and China.”
Throughout the course of Nov 22, Lee Chee Koon, group chief executive officer of CLI, said: “For nonpublic credit we’ve built our own group and created a collaboration with teams from Wingate in Australia, originating and supporting deals and there’s a whole lot of even more pipeline we can integrate in Australia and Asia-Pacific.”
CLI also claimed it will invest as much as A$ 1 billion ($ 876.7 million) to grow funds under management (FUM) in Australia. In September, CLI finalized its Australian Credit Program (ACP). ACP is CLI’s first credit fund at A$ 265 million, backed by Asian investors.
It is insightful that on Nov 25, the Australian Financial Review ran a story saying that CLI intended to get Wingate.
