The Mapletree Investments, a property arm of the state-owned Temasek Holdings, is launching what is set to become Singapore’s second largest initial public offering (IPO) this year.

Mapletree Commercial Trust (MCT) aims to raise up to $983m from the offering, after pricing the shares at $0.88 each – slightly above the mid-point of its marketed range of $0.84 to $0.91 per unit. At the offer price, the projected yield for the year ending 31 Mar-12 and the year after is 5.7% and 6.2% respectively. MCT will sell up to 1.1b units (including the over-allotment option), of which 548.1m have been set aside for placement to institutional investors and another 302.2m to be taken up by cornerstone investors including NTUC FairPrice Co-op, AIA group, Hillsboro Capital and Itochu Corp.

MCT will initially hold three assets worth $2.8b in total, with crown jewel being Singapore’s largest mall VivoCity and the others being Bank of America Merrill Lynch HarbourFront and PSA Building office buildings. The local retail investors are likely to scramble over the 164.8m units made available to public, which opens today at 9am and will close on 25 Apr at 9am. MCT is expected to start trading on the mainboard on 27 Apr.

Source: SharesInv.com