ING Property Trust raises $35 million

ING Property Trust (ING) has successfully raised $35 million through a placement of units to institutional investors to part-repay existing bank debt of the Trust and to fund further growth opportunities.

There was very strong demand for units under the placement from both existing institutional unitholders and new institutional investors. This strong support meant that the proposed placement size of $25-30 million was increased to $35 million.Andrew Evans, Managing Director of the Trust’s manager said the placement had been very successful, with 31,390,134 units being placed at a price of $1.115 per unit (ex dividend). Settlement will occur on Wednesday, 23 November 2005, and the new units to be issued will rank equally in all respects with existing units, but will not participate in the Trust’s second-quarter distribution of 2.4875 cents per unit, which has a record date of 25 November 2005.

“We are extremely pleased with the results of the book build and the confidence the market continues to show in ING Property Trust”, Mr Evans said. “The very strong level of demand for units reinforces to us the benefits of the growth strategy we have adopted.”

As announced on 17 November, the Trust also intends to implement a unit purchase plan of $5,000 per unitholder to allow all of the Trust’s unitholders to participate in the capital raising and growth initiatives. More details on the proposed unit purchase plan will be announced in due course.

First NZ Capital Securities and Harmos Horton Lusk acted for ING Property Trust in connection with this placement.