Singapore stock market poised for biggest IPO in years
SINGAPORE : Singapore's stock market is poised for its largest listing in eight years today with the debut of a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on data centres.
Valued at US$773 million, the trust NTT DC REIT is backed by the city's sovereign wealth fund and Japan's NTT group.
It is expected to give a much-needed boost to the Singapore Exchange (SGX), which has seen lacklustre interest for major listings in recent years.
Data centres are an area of phenomenal growth owing to the global need to store massive amounts of digital data and run energy-intensive artificial intelligence tools.
Trading in NTT DC REIT in US dollars will start at 2pm, the managers of the initial public offering said in an announcement on the SGX website.
It will be the biggest listing on the exchange since 2017, when fiber network-centred NetLink NBN Trust raised S2.3 billion (US$1.8 billion).
NTT DC REIT is backed by Singapore's GIC, one of the world's biggest sovereign wealth funds, and Japan's telecommunications giant NTT Group.
The NTT Group, through its global data centre business NTT GDC, is the world's third-largest data centre provider, according to the IPO's prospectus.
Singapore is a leading hub for data centres in Asia, with its strategic location at the crossroads of submarine cable routes providing connectivity to the region and beyond.
'From 2024 to 2027, the power used by data centres is expected to rise at a compounded annual growth rate of 27.5%, following double-digit expansion over the past five years,' the prospectus said.
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