Incoming Swire chairman Merlin Swire may be putting some of the developer’s office assets on the block
Hong Kong-based developer Swire Properties is in talks to sell its stakes in Cityplaza Three and Cityplaza Four, a pair of grade A office towers in the city’s Quarry Bay area, the company announced on Thursday. Swire did not specify the other party to the negotiations in its filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Swire Properties Limited, a subsidiary of Swire Pacific Limited, “is in discussions which may lead to the disposal of companies owning its interests in the buildings” located at the developer’s flagship Taikoo Shing commercial complex on the east end of Hong Kong Island, according to the statement.
“Shareholders of Swire Pacific and Swire Properties should be aware that there is no assurance that the Cityplaza Four Disposal and/or the Cityplaza Three Disposal will take place or as to when it or they may take place,” the statement adds.
Swire Could Shed One-Fifteenth of Hong Kong Portfolio
Swire is in talks to sell off its interest in Cityplaza Three, which it built in 1992
Completed in 1992, Cityplaza Three is a 21-storey building at 14 Taikoo Wan Road, with a gross floor area of around 448,000 square feet (42,000 square metres). The adjacent, virtually identical Cityplaza Four, built one year earlier, offers 556,000 square feet of space. Both towers are connected to the Tai Koo MTR station and to Swire’s Cityplaza mall by way of climate-controlled walkways. The buildings also sit next to Swire’s Taikoo Shing residential development, which is beside the company’s Taikoo Place commercial complex.
The office buildings house top multinational tenants including Adidas, American Express, Deloitte, Wells Fargo Bank, Sony Pictures and Thompson Reuters. US co-working giant WeWork leased a 54,000 square foot space across four floors of Cityplaza Three that will host over 1,000 desks, Mingtiandi reported in March.
This past February, Swire topped out One Taikoo Place, the first of two grade A office towers in its HK$15 billion ($1.54 billion) Taikoo Place redevelopment project. The blue-chip developer has an investment portfolio of 15.1 million square feet, including residential and commercial space, completed and under development in Hong Kong, along with 8.7 million square feet in mainland China and 2.7 million square feet in the US.
Merlin Swire will take over from John Slosar as chairman of Swire Pacific group and its real estate and aircraft divisions effective July 1.
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