OUE Reit, UOB gauging market interest for One Raffles Place as part of asset strategy

[SINGAPORE] OUB Centre (OUBC) is conducting an exercise with UOB to determine market interest for One Raffles Place, which is expected to be put on the market at S$2.3 billion to S$2.4 billion.

This was confirmed by the manager of OUBC’s parent, OUE Real Estate Investment Trust (OUE Reit), in a Friday (Feb 20) bourse filing, and follows a report by The Business Times on Thursday about a potential sale of the office and retail asset above Raffles Place MRT station.

Units of OUE Reit were trading 4.2 per cent or S$0.015 higher at S$0.37 as at 1.17 pm on Friday, with around 8.4 million units having changed hands. UOB shares were 0.2 per cent or S$0.06 down at S$38.60, with some 746,900 shares transacted.

“As part of the manager’s proactive asset management strategy, OUBC, an indirect subsidiary of OUE Reit, is conducting an exercise together with UOB, to determine market interest for the property,” the manager of OUE Reit said on Friday.

OUBC holds an 81.54 per cent interest in One Raffles Place and UOB holds the remaining 18.46 per cent interest in the property, the manager added.

Meanwhile, OUE Reit holds an indirect 83.33 per cent interest in OUBC via wholly owned subsidiaries, giving it an effective stake of 67.95 per cent in One Raffles Place.

The manager clarified that there is “no assurance that any binding agreement or any transaction will materialise”.

Citing data issued by OUE Reit for its second half-year and full-year 2025 results, the BT report on Thursday noted that the valuation of OUBC’s 81.54 per cent stake in One Raffles Place stood at S$1.93 billion as at Dec 31, 2025. This translates to S$2,745 per square foot on net lettable area.

The report added that this suggests a valuation of nearly S$2.4 billion for a 100 per cent stake in the property, based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation.

One Raffles Place’s current gross floor area is close to 1.3 million square feet, around 17 times the site area. It exceeds the 15.0 gross plot ratio for the commercial-zoned site under the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Master Plan 2025.

In its latest financial results, OUE Reit’s distribution per unit stood at S$0.0125 for the second-half ended December, up 10.6 per cent year on year from S$0.0113.

The improvement was attributed to continued resilient operating performance across the Reit’s portfolio and stronger capital structure which the manager said enabled the trust to benefit amid a lower interest-rate environment.