NTT DC Reit rises 3% above IPO price in debut as SGX’s largest Reit listing in 10 years

Units of NTT DC real estate investment trust (Reit) marginally rose on its debut on Monday (Jul 14), as the largest Reit initial public offering (IPO) on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) in a decade.

As at 2.05 pm, it inched up US$0.03 to US$1.03 from its IPO price of US$1 per unit, before falling to US$1.02 at 2.15 pm after 40.9 million securities changed hands.

The mega listing marks one of Asia’s largest data centre Reit IPOs, which broadens opportunities for investors to gain exposure to assets driving the boom in artificial intelligence (AI).

NTT DC Reit has an IPO market capitalisation of US$1 billion, and it will be the third pure-play data centre Reit listed in Singapore.

Its portfolio comprises six data centres – four in the US, one in Austria and one in Singapore – with an aggregate appraised value of US$1.6 billion.

Approximately 600 million units are on offer, comprising US$1 per unit for 569.9 million units in its international placement, and 30 million units at S$1.276 per unit for the Singapore public offer.

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According to a bourse filing on Friday, the public tranche of its Singapore IPO was around 9.8 times oversubscribed, where there were 14,166 valid applications for an aggregate of 294.8 million units, based on the 30 million units available for subscription.

A group of cornerstone investors will subscribe to over 172 million units in total, representing 16.8 per cent of all units. This runs concurrent with, but separate from the offering.

GIC is one of these investors, which is subscribing to more than 100 million units that make up 9.8 per cent of the total units in issue after the offering. With NTT DC Reit’s listing, GIC is now a substantial unit holder – becoming the second-largest investor in NTT DC Reit after its sponsor.

The other cornerstone investors are AM Squared, Ghisallo Master Fund, Hazelview Securities, Pinpoint Asset Management (Singapore), Viridian Asset Management and UBS (acting through its Singapore Branch, on behalf of wealth management customers).

NTT DC Reit noted in its prospectus earlier that the global data centre market has demonstrated high growth, with commissioned power growing from 18.2 gigawatts (GW) in 2020 to 49.1GW in 2024, representing a compound annual growth rate of 28.1 per cent, and estimates are for it to continue growing at double-digit pace until 2027.