Frasers Hospitality, Asia’s 2nd largest serviced-apartment operator, said it’s in talks to set up private equity funds to invest in China, India and Southeast Asia after delaying its planned share sale.
The company, which expanded its portfolio eight fold to 3,287 apartment units in the past decade, is raising funds for new developments together with markets such as Vietnam and Indonesia, said Chief Executive Officer Choe Peng Sum.
“A lot of people are still interested in Vietnam,” Choe said in an interview in Singapore late yesterday. “We think China and India are a very good counter to what’s happening with subprime. There’s a slowdown, but there’s still gravitation to the emerging markets.”
Frasers Hospitality, a unit of Singapore’s Fraser & Neave Ltd., is raising funds as it seeks to more than double its portfolio to more than 8,000 apartments in the next 3-4 years. The company, which plans to add nine properties in 2008, said its share sale has been delayed by at least a year as the benchmark Straits Times Index fell 14 % this year.
The Singapore Company is turning to private-equity firms after they raised $163.5 billion in the first quater of 2008, the second-biggest quarter since London-based Private Equity Intelligence Ltd. started tracking the data in 2003. The money is coming from pension funds, endowments and sovereign funds even as a shortage of credit stopped most deal-making.
Ascott Group, a unit of CapitaLand Ltd., Southeast Asia’s biggest developer, is Asia’s largest with 15,000 serviced- residence units and another 6,000 under development. Singapore- based CapitaLand took the company private last year.