The opening of Jewel Changi Airport has been the talk of the town recently. The new mega-mall located at Changi Airport features the tallest indoor waterfall (at 40 metres), an indoor forest, and over 280 new shops and restaurants.

Jewel is 49%-owned by CapitaLand, one of Asia’s largest real estate companies, which manages a portfolio of integrated developments, shopping malls, lodging, offices, homes, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and funds worth over S$100 billion.

While Jewel has certainly made it onto the headlines and Instagram feeds everywhere, the bigger news for investors is CapitaLand’s S$11 billion acquisition of Ascendas-Singbridge (ASB). ASB is a real estate company which manages a portfolio of business/logistics parks, lodging, commercial, retail and residential properties worth S$20 billion.

The acquisition would see CapitaLand become the largest real estate manager in Asia and the ninth largest globally. I invested four hours to attend CapitaLand’s annual general