Auckland • Thursday 17 November 2005
ING announces placement and unit purchase plan
ING Property Trust (ING) has today announced a capital raising, comprising an institutional placement of $25 million to
$30 million and a unit purchase plan. The placement will be marketed to New Zealand and Australian institutional
investors.
The funds raised will be used to part-repay existing bank debt of the Trust and to better position the Trust to pursue
further growth opportunities. Andrew Evans, Managing Director of the Trust’s manager said the Trust is currently
completing due diligence on 2 properties, both of which have been secured in off-market transactions, with a value of
$26.5 million.
In addition, the Trust has a number of other growth opportunities and developments currently in progress. These
developments include a new warehouse building under construction on Auckand’s North Shore for Building Materials Limited
and a $5 million extension to the existing Bunnings distribution centre in East Tamaki.
The Trust is also progressing a $20 million redevelopment of its existing Spotlight property in the Porirua Mega Centre.
At the October annual meeting, unitholders were advised that the Trust planned to invest up to 5.0% of the value of the
Trust in “land opportunities”, to create a stream of future development assets.
Accordingly, investigations have already begun towards identifying such prospects, and discussions are ongoing with a
number of potential project partners. The placement will be undertaken via a book build, which will take place later
today. A trading halt for the units has been granted by NZX to allow the placement to occur.
Trading in the units is expected to resume on Monday, 21 November (but may resume earlier if the placement closes
early). Units issued under the placement will rank equally in all respects with existing issued fully paid units in the
Trust, except that such units will not carry any right to the Trust’s second-quarter distribution of 2.4875 cents per
unit, which has a record date of 25 November 2005.
In addition to the institutional placement, the Trust intends to implement a unit purchase plan of $5,000 per unitholder
to be offered to unitholders in the Trust’s current quarter. This will allow all of the Trust’s unitholders to
participate in the capital raising and growth initiatives. More details on the proposed unit purchase plan will be
announced in due course.
ING Property Trust’s portfolio of 99 buildings, with a total value of more than $800 million, is currently 99% occupied.
ING Property Trust is New Zealand’s only truly diversified listed property investor with assets across the industrial,
retail and commercial office sectors. The Trust is managed by ING Property Trust Management Limited.
ENDS