Lehman Brothers to build offices in Singapore

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, the fourth-largest US securities firm by market value, will develop a S$450 million (US$298 million) office complex in Singapore as a shortage of space pushes up rents.

The 26,000-square-meter building in Singapore's central business district will be completed in the second quarter of 2009, Lehman said yesterday. Lehman is developing the complex in a venture with Kajima Overseas Asia, which will own 50 percent of the building, Bloomberg News said.

Office rents in Singapore's central business district are at record highs amid a supply shortage as financial institutions are lured to the city-state by corporate tax cuts. The government has suspended the conversion of office buildings to other purposes such as residential and retail and released more sites for temporary offices to ease the shortage.

"We have recently made the decision ourselves to move our regional operating headquarters for the global real estate group in Southeast Asia from Bangkok to Singapore, consolidating our presence in the region," said Blake Olafson, senior vice president of Lehman's real estate group.

Lehman's global real estate group has about US$7.3 billion of property investments in the region, Olafson said.Lehman reported a smaller profit decline than analysts estimated on Tuesday after it limited losses on home loans and leveraged-buyout financing.Net income declined to US$887 million in the third quarter from US$916 million a year earlier, it said

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