Pacific Century Place Marounuchi also drew interest from Brookfield and Hongkong Land (Image: Google)
Singapore sovereign fund GIC has agreed to sell the office component of Pacific Century Place Marunouchi, a 32-storey tower next to Tokyo Station, to Japanese fund manager Kenedix for over JPY 230 billion ($1.4 billion), market sources confirmed to Mingtiandi on Thursday.
Kenedix plans to tokenise at least part of the asset after completing the acquisition, the sources said. Mizuho Trust & Banking and JLL are advising on the sale.
Unsuccessful bidders, thought to include Canada’s Brookfield, offered around JPY 230 billion, while Hongkong Land dropped out of the contest at an earlier stage, according to the sources. The final pricing for the transaction was not disclosed, but is said to have not exceeded JPY 240 billion. The guide price for the asset sale is said to have been JPY 250 billion.
GIC declined to comment on the transaction. Kenedix had not responded to Mingtiandi’s request for comment at the time of publication.
Central Station Trophy
The agreement follows a June report by Bloomberg that GIC had granted Kenedix first negotiation rights after the Tokyo-based firm submitted a bid of around JPY 230 billion, with the talks still in progress at that time.
GIC chief executive Lim Chow Kiat (Image: GIC)
GIC’s holding spans levels 8 through 31 of the tower and comprises 38,840 square metres (418,070 square feet) of net rentable area, according to the sovereign fund’s 2014 acquisition announcement. The property has direct sheltered access to Tokyo Station in the capital’s prime Marunouchi business district.
Completed in 2001, Pacific Century Place Marunouchi is a mixed-use development with 81,692 square metres of gross floor area. The components outside GIC’s holding include the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Marunouchi and various retail and food outlets.
GIC acquired the office component from Secured Capital Investment Management, part of what is now PAG, nearly 12 years ago for JPY 180 billion. The agreed sale range represents a nominal gain of 28 to 33 percent on the reported purchase price before transaction costs.
At JPY 230 billion to JPY 240 billion, the transaction values GIC’s office component at JPY 5.9 million to JPY 6.2 million ($36,000 to $39,000) per square metre of rentable area. The deal comes as Grade A office vacancy across Tokyo’s five central wards fell to 1.3 percent in the second quarter, while average monthly rent rose 3.9 percent from the previous quarter to JPY 12,100 per square metre, according to Colliers.
Kenedix’s purchase ranks among Tokyo’s biggest office trades after Brookfield agreed in February to acquire Dentsu Group’s 48-storey headquarters for JPY 300 billion. The Canadian manager had a year earlier taken a 30 percent stake in the Meguro Gajoen complex as part of a $1.6 billion two-asset investment.
Blackstone set the recent benchmark with its JPY 400 billion purchase of the mixed-use Tokyo Garden Terrace Kioicho from Seibu Holdings in February 2025 — the largest-ever Japanese property acquisition by a foreign investor. The US giant has since secured a JPY 1.5 trillion mandate from Nippon Life and said it plans to deploy $15 billion into Japanese real estate over three years.
Local Heavyweight
Kenedix has been wholly owned by SMFL Mirai Partners since ESR sold its remaining 30 percent stake in the fund manager last October. SMFL Mirai and ARA Asset Management, which later became part of ESR, had teamed up to take Kenedix private in a $1.3 billion deal completed in 2021.
Founded in 1995, Kenedix managed JPY 5.57 trillion ($34.8 billion) in assets at the end of June, up JPY 164.8 billion from six months earlier, according to its latest disclosure. The firm operates listed and private REITs and other funds investing across offices, housing, retail, logistics, hotels, healthcare and infrastructure.
The planned tokenisation of the Marunouchi asset would extend a digital securities business that Kenedix has developed alongside its conventional funds. The manager carried out Japan’s first real estate security token offering in 2021 and describes the products as a key part of its effort to combine property, finance and technology.
Kenedix was also in contention last November to acquire Sapporo Holdings’ real estate business, alongside Lone Star Funds, after negotiations with PAG and KKR appeared to stall. PAG and KKR ultimately secured the business in December at an enterprise value of around $3 billion, including Tokyo’s Yebisu Garden Place.
For GIC, the Tokyo sale comes as the sovereign giant is reportedly funding Investa’s A$450 million ($318 million) purchase of Sydney’s 1 Market Street office tower. The Singapore institution is separately said to be seeking buyers for $1 billion in interests in funds managed by EQT, TPG and KKR to release capital for new investments.
GIC this month also teamed with Macquarie Asset Management and Anthropic to establish a US data centre platform serving the Claude developer. The venture followed the $936 billion fund’s move to sharpen its focus on AI infrastructure after its annualised five-year nominal return fell to 3.6 percent, the lowest since 2013, while its 20-year real return eased to 3.4 percent.