CapitaLand Ascendas Reit buys US property from DHL unit for S$94.5 million

[SINGAPORE] The manager of CapitaLand Ascendas Reit (Clar) on Friday (Jan 16) announced its purchase of a logistics property in Columbus, Ohio, in the US for S$94.5 million, payable in cash.

Once the deal with DHL’s subsidiary, RES Canal Winchester I, is completed in the first quarter of the year, the DHL Canal Winchester will be leased back to DHL. It is Clar’s second sale-and-leaseback transaction with DHL in the US, following the one with DHL Indianapolis Logistics Center in January 2025.

The acquisition by Clar’s wholly owned subsidiary, Ascendas Reit Columbus 1, is distribution per unit (DPU) accretive on a pro forma basis, said the manager. Had it been completed on Jan 1, 2024, the DPU accretion would have been about S$0.000012 or 0.1 per cent.

The first-year net property income yield of the acquisition is at about 7.4 per cent of pre-transaction costs and 7.2 per cent of post-transaction costs.

William Tay, the chief executive officer of the manager, said: “The accretive acquisition underscores our strategy of selectively investing in logistics growth markets in the US with excellent connectivity and deep occupier demand.”

The property was bought at a 3.3 per cent discount to the independent market valuation of S$97.7 million as at Jan 1, said the manager. The total acquisition cost stands at S$96.4 million, which will be financed through a combination of internal resources, divestment proceeds and/or existing debt facilities.

Tay added that DHL Canal Winchester will strengthen Clar’s income resilience because its long-term lease runs until December 2030, with options to renew for two additional five-year terms, and built-in annual rental escalations of 3.5 per cent.

It will also increase the proportion of modern logistics assets in Clar’s US logistics portfolio (by by assets under management) to 52.4 per cent.

The property was completed in 2024 and comprises a single-storey logistics building with a gross floor area of 755,160 square feet (sq ft). It has a “long” weighted average lease expiry of about five years.

The manager said the Columbus location will give it a foothold in the Midwest, a “key logistics market”. Columbus is the sixth-largest logistics market in the Midwest, based on its market size of about 307.1 million sq ft, and demand for industrial space continues to be robust.

Positive net absorption outpaced new construction vacancies in 2025, which led to a decline in the vacancy rate for three consecutive quarters to 7 per cent in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, average asking rents in the market for industrial space went up 2.5 per cent year on year, said the manager, citing CBRE data.

Units of Clar fell 1.4 per cent or S$0.04 to close at S$2.84 on Thursday.