Singapore-listed Ascendas Hospitality Trust (A-HTRUST) (SGX:Q1P) has requested for a trading halt of its units on the Singapore Exchange at around 7.30 am this morning. This is the second time the Trust has requested for a trading halt within a space of 2 months.

Park Hotel Clarke Quay will be Ascendas Hospitality Trust's first property in Singapore. 

It is believed that the trading halt is in connection with A-HTRUST's proposal to carry out an equity fund raising comprising an offering of 226,352,625 new stapled securities in Ascendas Hospitality Trust. It plans to raise no less that S$200 million to fund its acquisition of Park Hotel Clarke Quay by issuing a private placement of 161,947,000 new stapled securities at an issue price of between S$0.885 and S$0.915 per unit. This would raise about S$143.3 million.

The rest will be done through through preferential offering of 64,405,625 new stapled securities on the basis of 2 new stapled securities for every 25 existing stapled securities in A-HTRUST held as at 5.00 p.m. on 7 June 2013 at an issue price of between S$0.880 and S$0.905 per new unit. This would raise a further 56.7 million. The preferential offering represents a discount of about 3 percent to 6 percent of prevailing unit prices for A-HTRUST. Its units closed the last trading day at S$0.925.

The offer price of the new units will be decided and announced at a later date and will be coordinated jointly by DBS Bank Limited and Standard Chartered Securities.

By Ridzwan Rahmat

Ridzwan has been analysing REITs and business trusts since 2008, and personally manages a portfolio comprising mainly of SGX-listed REITs. He founded REITsWeek in 2013.