India's two leading real estate developers DLF Ltd and Unitech Ltd have shelved plans to list their real estate investment trusts (REIT) on the Singapore Stock Exchange due to global equity turmoil, a newspaper report said on Saturday.
"We are not going to look at a REIT listing till market conditions improve," DLF's group chief financial officer Ramesh Sanka told the Mint paper. Unitech Corporate Parks, the London-listed investments company of Unitech, was also not planning to float a REIT, the paper quoted Managing Director Sanjay Chandra as saying. "We are not talking to any banks."
DLF had planned to list its REIT, DLF Assets, in Singapore through an initial public offering to raise about $1.5 billion. Originally scheduled in the first quarter of 2008, it was shelved then due to the volatile market conditions. Last month sources had indicated to Reuters that DLF would revive the REIT IPO plans on improved market conditions.
Unitech had also put its plans for a REIT IPO on hold in March this year. Indiabulls Real Estate raised about SGD $262.5 million from its REIT offering earlier this month. Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust has been trading below its offer price of SGD $1 per unit. Shares in DLF closed down 3.6 percent on the BSE on Friday while Unitech was down 1 percent.