CapitaLand Commercial (CCL), a subsidiary of listed CapitaLand Limited, announced today that it has completed the sale of 131 Finsbury Pavement a 9-storey office building located in the heart of the city of Londons financial district to an unrelated, privately-held UK company, for approximately S$125 million.

Ed Ng, CEO of CapitaLand Commercial, said, "This move is in line with our divestment strategy to optimise property returns from investment properties, and generate greater returns for shareholders. The sales proceeds from this transaction will be used to reduce gearing and fund other investments."

131 Finsbury Pavement has been fully leased to OM London Exchange Limited and Bass Taverns Limited since June 2000. The property is held by Tafoni Pte Ltd (TPL), which is wholly-owned by Calomel Pte Ltd, which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CCL. This latest sale follows CCLs recently completed transaction with ERGO Insurance Group to set up the first wholesale property fund denominated in Singapore dollars. It resulted in the sale of three prime CCL office properties in the Singapore central business district namely, Pidemco Centre (100%), The Adelphi (100%) and Temasek Tower (19.92%) to this property fund which is managed by CCL.

With the completion of these two transactions, CapitaLand has attained a total gain of S$71.6 million. TPL has recognised a gain of S$29.2 million from its selling price of S$125 million after deducting divestment expenses, while the ERGO transaction has realised a net gain of S$42.4 million. The two deals respectively are not expected to have any material impact on listed CapitaLand Limiteds net tangible assets per share but nonetheless will contribute about 2.9 cents to earnings per share for the current financial year.

The property is located within the EC2 postal district in Finsbury Square, which attracts many of the worlds leading international banking and finance-related organisations such as Bloomberg, Merrill Lynch and UBS Warburg. In particular, 131 Finsbury Pavement occupies not only a highly prominent corner site but is also at one of the main focal points of the city of London.

131 Finsbury Pavement sits on about 929 square metres of prime freehold land. The building has a net lettable area of about 7,259 square metres, and has exceptionally regular floor plates with full height floor to ceiling windows which offer direct views over Finsbury Square, one of the few open areas in the city. Being within close proximity of two of the city of Londons busiest commuter transport facilities, namely Liverpool Street and Moorgate Stations, the property is well positioned for commuter travel.

About CapitaLand Commercial and CapitaLand Fund Management

CapitaLand Commercial owns, develops and manages an extensive portfolio of commercial properties in Singapore and the region with a total asset base exceeding S$9 billion as at 31 December 2000. In Singapore, CapitaLand Commercial is the largest manager of office, retail and industrial space, with a portfolio of 10.9 million square feet of net lettable area in total. Overseas, it has investments in several key gateway cities including Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur and London.

CapitaLand Fund Management works closely with CapitaLand Commercial to identify attractive and stable assets for injection into new property funds to meet the risk-return profiles of local and international investors.

CapitaLand Commercial and CapitaLand Fund Management are business units of CapitaLand Limited, Southeast Asias largest listed property company with assets of more than S$19 billion, spanning 54 cities and 22 countries