Global Logistic Properties is set to raise $3.45 billion in Singapore’s biggest initial public offering since 1993, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

 

Shares in GLP, the overseas logistics unit of Government of Singapore Investment Corp., were priced at $1.96 a share, the top end of a range marketed to investors, the people said on condition of anonymity.

 

The Global Logistic IPO will push the amount raised in Singapore equity offerings in 2010 to US$5.33 billion ($6.97 billion), making it the biggest year for share sales in the city-state since 2007. Mapletree Industrial Trust, owned by a unit of Temasek Holdings Pte, plans to raise as much as $940 million in an IPO next week.

 

“The momentum and sentiment should keep going, though there’s quite a number of IPOs coming through at the moment so you never know when the appetite might turn,” said Chong Yoon- Chou, Singapore-based investment director at Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Ltd., which oversaw US$75 billion as of Aug. 31.

 

Global Logistic, which said last month it would offer 1.76 billion shares, plans to use $1.5 billion of the proceeds to expand in China and Japan, and about $600 million to pay down existing shareholder loans. There is an over-allotment option to expand the sale by 234.7 million shares.

 

The company, whose customers include Wal-Mart China, Deutsche Post AG’s DHL and FedEx Corp., is led by Deputy Chairman and Executive Director Jeffrey Schwartz. It owns, manages and leases 296 properties within 122 integrated parks, and its network is spread across 25 major cities in China and Japan, according to its prospectus.

 

GIC, through its subsidiaries, will own 56.8% of the company after the share offering and 51.5% if the over- allotment option of 234.7 million shares is exercised, according to its prospectus.

 

Global Logistic will be the third IPO in Asia that’s linked to GIC this year, according to publicly available reports.

 

The sovereign wealth fund had divested its stakes in Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall and the Sunway Resort Hotel portfolio to a Malaysian property trust that was listed in July. GIC bought a 5 percent stake in the property trust, which raised about 1.5 billion ringgit ($633 million), Malaysia’s biggest initial public offering this year.

 

China Minzhong Food Corp., a food processor backed by GIC, raised $237 million in an initial share sale in Singapore in April.

 

“GIC does provide a bit of the goodwill backing,” Aberdeen’s Chong said of the latest IPO. “Also, interest rates are so low right now that a lot of institutions and retail investors are looking for these kinds of yield prospects.”

 

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are leading a group of investment banks arranging the IPO, including UBS AG, China International Capital Corp. and DBS Group Holdings.

 

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.’s initial offering in the city-state in 1993 raised more than $4 billion.