Mapletree Industrial Trust: Raising SGD 200 Million to Acquire a Data Center in Osaka

Mapletree Industrial Trust ME8U is looking to raise SGD 200 million via private placement to fund the acquisition of a data center in Osaka, Japan. The acquisition marks the trust’s first entry into Japan’s data center market, which is the third largest data center market in Asia-Pacific. We are positive on this move as it is distribution per unit, or DPU, accretive, and increases the trust’s portfolio exposure to the data center asset class that benefits from strong secular tailwinds such as demand from 5G, e-commerce, and artificial intelligence. Nonetheless, as the size of the acquisition is relatively small, we retain our fair value estimate at SGD 2.41 per unit. We think the trust is currently fairly valued.