By Yantoultra Ngui

SINGAPORE, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Japan's Nippon Telegraph &

Telephone Corp (NTT) has appointed Bank of America ( BAC )

and UBS to work on a $1 billion data centre

real estate investment trust listing in Singapore, two sources

with knowledge of the matter said.

The listing, which sources said was likely to take place in

the second half of 2025, could help spur IPO activity in

Singapore, where $152.3 million in IPO proceeds were raised last

year, up 37.7% from $110.6 million in 2023, according to LSEG

data.

The appointments were first reported by IFR earlier on

Friday.

"We are currently evaluating the potential of forming a

REIT. However, at this moment, no definitive decisions have been

made. Consequently, we do not have any additional comments to

provide at this time," NTT DATA Group said in an official email

statement to Reuters on Friday.

UBS declined to comment. Bank of America ( BAC ) did not immediately

respond to an email request seeking comment on Friday.

Singapore announced in August last year the setting up of a

review group to recommend measures to strengthen equities market

development in the city-state.

The listing, if materialised, would also be the biggest in

Singapore since the $977 million IPO of Digital Core REIT

in 2021, LSEG data showed.

It comes at a time when investor appetite for data centres

is growing in Asia, driven by the demand for artificial

intelligence and cloud computing-based services.

NTT is a Japanese telecommunication giant with a market

capitalisation of $88.92 billion as of Friday, according to LSEG

data.

Its global data centres division is one of the largest in

the world, spanning more than 20 countries and regions,

including the Americas, Asia Pacific, EMEA and India, according

to one of its websites.