Ichigo Office REIT Investment Corporation is shedding the last two retail buildings in its portfolio and using the proceeds to lift its payout forecast by more than a quarter. The Tokyo-listed REIT (8975) said on September 18 that it has agreed to sell three properties, the Ichigo Shibuya Bunkamura-dori Building, the Ichigo Kamata Building and the Ichigo Sagamihara Building, for a combined ¥8.24bn, well above their combined appraised value of ¥5.57bn.
The two retail assets did the heavy lifting. Together, the Shibuya Bunkamura-dori and Kamata buildings sold for 1.8 times their combined estimated book value and 1.6 times their combined April appraisal, the REIT said. Shibuya Bunkamura-dori, an eight-story shop building near Shibuya station, sold for ¥4.88bn against a ¥2.91bn appraisal. The Kamata office-and-retail building went for ¥2.12bn against a ¥1.31bn appraisal. The Sagamihara building, a mid-sized office block near JR Sagamihara station that has run at full occupancy, fetched ¥1.24bn, slightly below its ¥1.35bn appraisal but the highest of several bids the manager received.
| Property | Sale price | Appraisal value | Estimated book value | Delivery date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ichigo Shibuya Bunkamura-dori Building | ¥4.88bn | ¥2.91bn | ¥2.43bn | Oct 8, 2026 |
| Ichigo Kamata Building | ¥2.12bn | ¥1.31bn | ¥1.42bn | Oct 8, 2026 |
| Ichigo Sagamihara Building | ¥1.24bn | ¥1.35bn | ¥1.19bn | Oct 28, 2026 |
Selling the two commercial-retail buildings finishes a longer pivot: with Shibuya and Kamata gone, Ichigo Office REIT's portfolio becomes 100% office, all in mid-sized buildings, the strategy the manager, Ichigo Investment Advisors, has been building toward. Contracts were signed September 18; Shibuya and Kamata are due to change hands October 8, and Sagamihara on October 28. Because the Sagamihara settlement falls more than a month after signing, it counts as a forward commitment under the Financial Services Agency's supervisory guidelines, and the REIT has received a 5% deposit; it is not a cancellation deposit, so if either side breaches the contract, the other may terminate and claim a penalty of up to 5% of the sale price.
The manager expects the three sales to generate roughly ¥2.5bn in combined gains, and it says it will keep just ¥101mn of that as a tax-free reserve while distributing the rest to unitholders for the period through October 2026. On the Sagamihara building specifically, the manager said it chose to sell now and redeploy the roughly ¥1.19bn book-value equivalent into capital spending on higher-return existing assets, judging that better for medium-term unit value than continuing to hold the building. It will hold the broader net proceeds as cash for strategic use, including further acquisitions or value-enhancing capital spending, it said.
The math shows up in guidance. In a same-day filing, Ichigo Office REIT raised its forecast for the period through October 2026: operating revenue to ¥16.62bn from ¥14.2bn, net income to ¥11.02bn from ¥8.68bn, and distribution per unit to ¥7,293 from ¥5,683, a 28.3% increase. Part of that per-unit gain comes from a smaller assumed unit count: the REIT completed a buyback of its own units on September 11 and is assuming the planned cancellation of 15,777 of them, cutting the forecast unit total to 1,511,926 from 1,527,703. The manager is assuming 97.3% occupancy across its properties at the end of October and ¥126.64bn of interest-bearing debt.
The buyers of the three buildings were not named; the filing describes them only as unrelated domestic operating companies with no capital, personnel or business ties to the REIT or its manager. The disposal gains and the resulting distribution remain forecasts until the properties actually change hands in October.