Mapletree Logistics Trust (MLT) has launched an equity fundraising programme to partially finance the acquisitions of 17 assets across China, Vietnam, and Japan.

The REIT announced late on 22 November that it is acquiring 13 assets in China and three properties in Vietnam from subsidiaries of its sponsor for about SGD1 billion.

Separately, MLT is also acquiring a logistics asset in Japan from an unrelated third party for SGD416 million.

“The pandemic has highlighted the importance of logistics and placed a greater emphasis on supply chain resiliency, fuelling demand for modern logistics space”, said Ng Kiat, CEO of the REIT’s manager.

“The acquisitions of these 17 modern Grade-A logistics assets with an average age of 1.6 years position us well to capture these structural trends”, she added.

The Chinese and Vietnamese assets collectively feature about a million square metres in net lettable area (NLA) collectively, and are 91% occupied with weighted average lease expiry (WALE) of 2.9 years by NLA.