Harbour City in Kowloon is Wharf’s flagship retail property
Luxury sales in Hong Kong are still sliding, but Wharf Holdings, one of the city’s biggest retail landlords sees light at the end of the tunnel. Slightly further north, the rulers of Beijing are counting on moving 15 percent of the city’s downtown population to someplace else over the next few years, while in Singapore, a real estate tycoon would like to take his $800 million listed developer private. Read on for all these stories and more.
Wharf Says HK Retail Ready to Rebound
Wharf Holdings, which operates Hong Kong’s largest shopping mall, said luxury brand sales have bottomed out after retailers slashed prices to offset the slump in the number of mainland tourists.
“In June and July, some high-end brands saw sales declines narrowing or even improving on a yearly basis,” vice chairman Doreen Lee Yuk-fong said while announcing the interim results on Wednesday. Read more>>
Beijing Preparing to Shrink City Centre by 15% by 2020
China’s capital, suffering from growing pains following years of breakneck expansion, is embarking on a radical plan to rein in its population by kicking people out of the city center.
Beijing’s government is shutting down businesses and moving others out of the central part of the metropolis in the hope that people will follow. Entire markets deemed unfit for the capital have been closed or moved and services shut down. Read more>>
Sim Lian Founder Makes $808M Offer to Privatize Listed Developer
The founder of Sim Lian Group Ltd is leading an offer to buy the Singapore-based real estate firm and delist it, in a deal that values the company at S$1.09 billion ($808.2 million).
Coronation 3G, an investment holding company led by Sim Lian founder and Executive Chairman Kuik Ah Han, has offered S$1.08 for each share, representing a premium of 15 percent to the stock’s last closing price of S$0.94. Read more>>
Evergrande Lifts 2016 Sales Target by 50%
China Evergrande Group, one of the largest property developers in China which has been making media headlines lately due to its purchase of China Vanke Co shares, aims to raise its 2016 target for contract sales by 50 percent to 300 billion yuan (US$45 billion).
In the first seven months, the Guangzhou-based developer has already sealed contract property sales of over 184 billion yuan, or 92 percent of its original target for this year, Evergrande said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday. Read more>>
SHK, HK Ferry Pay Combined HK$4.1B for New Territories Sites
Two residential sites in Sha Tin and Tuen Mun were sold by tender for a total of HK$5.07 billion to Sun Hung Kai Properties (0016) and Hong Kong Ferry (0050) respectively. Both sites were sold at prices higher than market expectation.
SHKP acquired the Sha Tin site in To Shek for HK$2.36 billion. With a maximum gross floor area of 434,000 square feet, the price per sq ft was HK$5,448, around 36 percent above the market valuation. SHKP deputy managing director Victor Lui Ting said the site is suitable for developing a high-end residential project and the estimated investment will be around HK$5 billion. Read more>>
Tune in again tomorrow for more news, and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter for headlines as they happen.
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