Sime Darby Property, Malaysia鈥檚 largest property group, has formed a 51-49 joint venture with Logos to develop logistics facilities in Malaysia.
The partnership has created Industrial Joint Venture to act as an investment holding company and manager of logistics funds.
Its first fund was announced today, with a target of RM850m (鈧�174m) in total commitments to be raised from third-party capital partners.
At a media briefing, Sime Darby Property group managing director, Azmir Merican, said his firm had allocated a 177-acre site 鈥� within its prime Bandar Bukit Raja township in Klang, in Selangor 鈥� to the joint venture for its seed project.
Merican said Sime Darby had a total industrial land bank of 2,800 acres.
鈥淭his gives you the potential of what is available for further development after we finish the first project,鈥� he said.
What he termed 鈥渢his strategic partnership鈥� was a significant step forward in the company鈥檚 evolution into a real estate development company, which would have a wider recurring income base including from funds management by 2025, he said.
Trent Iliffe, joint managing director of Logos Group, said Logos had initiated discussion with Sime Darby 鈥渇our or five years ago鈥� because Malaysia was an important link for logistics customers in the region. 鈥淚t has been a long journey for us.鈥�
He said: 鈥淭he size and scale of what (our) customers need and the liquidity that it will generate will help re-establish Malaysia as a global investment market. We do believe the joint venture would be a bit of a gamechanger,鈥� he said.
鈥淚t might take us two to three years to achieve that scale, but we will definitely see more foreign direct investment interest coming into Malaysia.鈥�
The industrial joint venture is Sime Darby鈥檚 second with an offshore partner. In 2018, it formed a 50-50 joint venture with Japan鈥檚 Mitsui to develop a 35-acre site in Bandar Bukit Raja.
Merican told 91传媒在线 that this joint venture was ongoing, but its focus was on developing small-scale projects on small lots.
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