Frasers Commercial Trust (SGX:ND8U) has completed the acquisition of 357 Collins Street in Melbourne, the Singapore-listed office REIT announced on 18 August.

“This marks Frasers Commercial Trust’s maiden entry into the Melbourne central business district office market, the second largest office market in Australia”, it said.

The REIT first announced in April 2015 that it was acquiring the 25-storey office tower with 31,000 square metres of net lettable area for a purchase consideration of AUD222.5 million (SGD231 million).

357 Collins Street has a weighted average lease expiry (WALE) of 6.0 years and committed occupancy of 98.4% as of 31 July, up from the 95.5% as of March 2015. The property is being purchased from Australian developer Australand.

The property’s total acquisition cost was mainly funded by net proceeds of SGD122.7 million from a private placement completed in August 2015 and the drawdown of new term loan facilities of SGD40 million and AUD75 million respectively.

Additionally, the REIT announced on the same day that it has entered into a building agreement with Frasers Hospitality China Square to develop a 16-storey hotel and commercial project at China Square Central.

The agreement has realised proceeds of of SGD44.8 million for the REIT which it will use to prepay a portion of existing bank borrowings and make available as capital distributions that may be distributed to unitholders.

Units of Frasers Commercial Trust fell by about 2% at the close of the trading day on the Singapore Exchange to end at SGD1.39.