ARA Said Marketing Seoul Office Block for $859M and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

A potential Korean mega-deal leads today’s roundup of real estate headlines, as Singapore’s ARA Asset Management is reported to be readying the sale of an office building in a Greater Seoul tech cluster.

China Evergrande also makes the roundup as its struggles for liquidity now include some fresh credit from local banks and the apparent failure of a rumoured deal to sell its property management business to cross-town rival Vanke.

ARA Said Marketing Korea’s Alpharium Tower for $859M

Alpharium Tower, a landmark office tower in Pangyo Techno Valley near Seoul, is expected to be put on the market later this year for around 1 trillion won ($859 million), which would make it the biggest office sale ever in the area often called South Korea’s Silicon Valley.

Singapore-based ARA Asset Management Ltd is now in the process of hiring a sale manager of the two interconnected buildings, according to investment banking sources on Aug. 13. Read more>>

Evergrande Gets Lifeline From State-Run Banks

At least three major creditors to China Evergrande Group have given it more time to repay maturing loans, according to people familiar with the matter, offering some relief for the cash-strapped developer as it fends off a string of demands for unpaid dues.

China Minsheng Banking Corp., China Zheshang Bank Co. and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co. have agreed to give the developer extensions on some project loans, according to the people, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are private. Zheshang Bank pushed till year-end the repayment of two loans due in July and August, one of the people said. Read more>>

Vanke Said to Abandon Deal for Evergrande Management Business

China Vanke and Country Garden are walking away from a deal to acquire the property management business of China Evergrande, mainland media reported on Thursday.

Investors are also worried about Evergrande’s liquidity issues, as it halted two property projects in Kunming after delaying pay for workers. Read more>>

Contractors Halt Construction of Two Evergrande Projects Over Unpaid Bills

Construction work has been halted on two projects of Evergrande Group in the south-western Chinese city of Kunming, one of them for overdue payments worth more than 210 million yuan (S$44 million), state media China National Radio said yesterday.

A suspension notice from the construction company – which is owed the money by the debt-laden Evergrande – said it was forced to halt work because of long overdue payment on fees and commercial paper, the radio station reported. Read more>>

Mapletree Logistics Trust to Buy Melbourne Cold Chain Project for $31.4M

The manager of Mapletree Logistics Trust (MLT) Mapletree Log Tr: M44U -0.95% has proposed to acquire a fully leased, freehold cold-storage facility in Australia for A$42.8 million ($31.4 million).

Following this deal, MLT will have five logistics assets in Melbourne and a total of 13 assets in Australia with more than A$870 million in assets under management and 352,400 square metres (sq m) of leasable space. Read more>>

CapitaLand Profit Rises Nearly Ten-Fold in 2021 1H

CapitaLand C31 turned in a better financial performance for the first six months of 2021, though it expects a patchy pace of recovery across its geographies and sectors amid resurging virus cases and uneven vaccination rates globally.

The property giant reported a net profit of S$922.15 million for the first half ended June 30, 2021 – nearly10 times the S$96.6 million chalked up in H1 FY2020 – on the back of nascent economic recovery in its core markets, Singapore and China. Read more>>

Sales of New Private Homes in Singapore Jumped 77% in July

New private home sales in July rallied in spite of tightened community measures in the second half of the month. Riding the pent-up demand wave, developers also enjoyed ripple effects from the launch of Pasir Ris 8.

Based on caveats lodged, analysts estimated that developers in Singapore sold 1,545 new private homes in July, jumping 77.2 per cent from June’s 872. Read more>>

Mainland Developer Yanlord Land Says Profit Rose 67% in 2021 1H

Yanlord Land Group’s net profit rose 67 per cent to 823.4 million yuan (S$174.5 million) for the half-year ended June 2021, from 492.9 million yuan in the year-ago period.

Group revenue rose 45 per cent to 13.2 billion yuan in H1 FY2021. Property development contributed 86.3 per cent of the revenue, or about 11.4 billion yuan; 5.2 per cent came from property investment and hotel operations; and 3.2 per cent from property management. Read more>>

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