KUALA LUMPUR (April 27): Amanah Harta Tanah PNB (AHP) is acquiring a 13.39 acre piece of land in Seremban with a three-storey mall cum hypermarket and two sub-basements for RM240 million, from Mydin Mohamed Holdings Bhd.

Based on a filing with Bursa Malaysia, the acquisition has been made by AmanahRaya Trustees Bhd on AHP’s behalf.

AHP (fundamental: 1.5; valuation: 1.55) is a real estate investment trust managed by Pelaburan Hartanah Nasional Bhd (the manager).

As part of the agreement, AHP will lease the property back to Mydin for an initial period of 30 years, for a pre-agreed rental sum over 10 term periods.

The rental sum will increase every term, starting at RM1.4 million a month for Term 1 or the first four years, and will escalate to RM3.3 million a month at Term 10 or the 30th year of the lease.

There is also an option to renew the lease, after the 30-year period.

“The proposed acquisition is in line with the objective of the manager to enhance its acquisition strategy to provide reasonable level of income return to unit holders and allow to gain from capital growth,” said the manager in the filing with Bursa Malaysia.

In conjunction with the proposed acquisition, the manager is also proposing to undertake a fundraising exercise through the issuance of 120 million rights units, on the basis of six rights units for every five existing units in AHP.

AHP intends to raise gross proceeds of RM129.6 million from the proposed rights issue, and the issue price of the rights units will be fixed at a later date. Of the proceeds, RM115 million will be used to fund the acquisition.

The manager said the remainder acquisition consideration will be satisfied through bank borrowings of RM125 million.

However, the borrowings to part finance the proposed acquisition would increase the gearing of the AHP to 36.71%, after the completion of the rights issue and proposed acquisition.

The trustees said barring any unforeseen circumstances, the proposals which are subject to approval of AHP unit holders are expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2015.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations)