Country Garden finding its way to Sydney was just one of the top stories of 2014
China’s real estate headlines in 2014 were dominated by giant property developers announcing overseas projects, but an artful former agent and a beautiful heiress, also seem to have caught public attention.
With just a few days left in 2014, it’s a great opportunity to look back at the stories that made the year in real estate, and remember the events that moved markets in China and around the world.
To get an accurate view of what readers were most interested in during 2014, we have counted up the pageviews to the more than 700 stories published on Mingtiandi in the last 12 months, and here are the ten stories that you visited the most.
HOW CY LEUNG LEGALLY COLLECTED $6.5M FEE ON DTZ SALE (REALLY)
In a midst of a struggle for the hearts and minds of Hong Kong’s citizenry on the streets of the SAR, the artful deal-making skills of the city’s chief executive were revealed in a series of embarrassing October revelations of how he squeezed the buyers of DTZ for extra cash. The fact that the former real estate broker chose to keep this deal secret, even though he took his payoff after taking office, only made this story more compelling.
CHINA REAL ESTATE PEOPLE IN THE NEWS 2014-08-25
Our weekly accounts of who’s changing jobs in Asia’s real estate industry are usually among the most popular elements of Mingtiandi, but one week in late August ranked among the biggest stories of the year. News of Colliers APAC CEO Piers Brunner leaving his post, and a new MD for Canadian pension fund manager La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, helped drive hundreds of people to read this story on the day it was published, and kept more readers coming in during the weeks to come.
CHINA REAL ESTATE PEOPLE IN THE NEWS 2014-06-09
Next on our list of top stories of 2014 is another edition of our weekly account of job changes. In early June Mingtiandi broke the news that Mark Suchy, who had brokered Greenland Group’s acquisition of the Metropolis project in LA, had left CBRE. In that same week we charted the latest moves for a number of private equity real estate professionals, including Gary Chan joining Fosun, George Agethen joining Ping An, and Stanley Chin of Portman setting up his own shop.
WANG JIANLIN’S WANDA BUYS 90% OF $900M CHICAGO PROJECT
At number seven on the list, was the story of Dalian Wanda acquiring a $900 million mixed-use project in Chicago. The July acquisition of the development site was one of many major overseas investments for Dalian Wanda in 2014, as the company prepared itself for the IPOs of its commercial real estate holdings in China and its chain of movie theatres across the mainland.
GREENLAND TO INVEST RMB 20 BIL FOR MALAYSIA PROJECTS NEAR SINGAPORE
Just ahead of Wanda’s Chicago deal was the story of Greenland Group’s plan to put RMB 20 billion into real estate development projects in Malaysia. The Shanghai-based developer revealed its plans for the project in Iskandar, just across the border from Singapore, just as February turned into March. At times in the year it seemed that Wanda and Greenland were hurling headlines at each other for which company could claim the title of “Overseas Investment Champion.”
CHINA VANKE IN NY REAL ESTATE PROJECT WITH HINES AND RFR
China’s biggest developer by sales also made the news for its overseas deals in 2014, with Vanke unveiling its participation in the development of a 61-storey luxury residential tower in Manhattan during late February. The Shenzhen-based developer’s story was the fifth most popular with Mingtiandi’s readers during 2014, no doubt helped along by its partnership in the project with two very recognisable real estate names from the US – Hines and RFR Holdings.
GREENLAND GROUP ADDS $360M CANADA PROJECT TO LIST OF OVERSEAS DEALS
Greenland Group shows up again at number four on the list with its March acquisition of a $360 million development project in Toronto. By adding Canada to the list of six other countries where Greenland already had projects, the adventurous state-owned enterprise showed its willingness to pursue projects across an ever-expanding list of locations.
COUNTRY GARDEN BUYS SYDNEY SITE FOR US$65 MILLION
At number three on the list is another account of a Chinese real estate developer picking up a project overseas, and this time it was Country Garden’s Australian subsidiary spending $65.76 million to buy a residential site in northwest Sydney. Although Country Garden has since curtailed its overseas ambitions, this February deal helped set the tone for a year in which Chinese interest in Australian property only seemed to rise.
SHANGHAI AND BEIJING RANK AS 10TH AND 11TH MOST EXPENSIVE CITIES
Finally breaking our string of outbound investment deals, at number two on our list of most popular stories of 2014 was a report telling expats living in China, that in addition to suffering from noxious air and chaotic traffic in their adopted homes, they may also be paying a premium to do so. The news that Hong Kong was the third most expensive city in the world for international executives to live, followed by Shanghai at number ten and Beijing at number eleven, captured attention for weeks.
PERENNA KEI, WORLD’S YOUNGEST BILLIONAIRE, IS ALSO PRETTY HOT
While outbound investment deals are exciting and the cost of living may be terrifying, in 2014 Mingtiandi’s readers showed that nothing was as interesting as a 24-year-old property heiress. Since the account of Ms Perenna Kei’s status as the world’s youngest billionaire was first published in March, the story of the director of Hong Kong-listed Logan Property has attracted nearly 27,000 pageviews from more than 2,500 cities. Perhaps it helped that Ms Kei is attractive and single, but I’m still trying to figure out the 4,993 pageviews from Budapest.
For next year we promise to bring you even more stories and I want to thank all of you for reading, and for all of your support during 2014.
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