Daisuke Kitta, head of Japan real estate for Blackstone
Japan leads today’s roundup of real estate headlines from around the region, with Blackstone talking up its recent series of disposals in Asia’s second-largest economy. Also in the news, SGX-listed Manulife US REIT will halt distributions for the first half of 2023 and a US cold chain REIT signs a Vietnam JV.
Blackstone Looks for More Deals After Selling $4.5B in Japan Assets
Blackstone is exploring more acquisitions in Japanese real estate, after selling about $4.5 billion worth in the past year to capitalize on high international interest in property in the island nation.
The world’s largest alternative-asset manager is working on more acquisitions with several bids out and properties like hotels and data centers in the pipeline, according to Blackstone’s head of Japan real estate Daisuke Kitta. That comes after it spent most of last year shedding assets, including about $1.3 billion in properties sold to investors like GIC and Gaw Capital Partners, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Read more>>
Manulife US REIT Halts Distributions After Covenant Breach
Manulife US Real Estate Investment Trust declared no distribution for the first half ended Jun 30, as the REIT has breached banks’ unencumbered gearing ratio, causing all its loans to be reclassified as current liabilities.
The manager of the REIT reported on Monday (Aug 14) a 17.4 percent decline in distributable income to $37.9 million in H1 2023 from $46.0 million in the corresponding year-ago period. Read more>>
Lineage Logistics Signs Vietnam Cold Chain JV
US cold chain industrial REIT Lineage Logistics on Friday announced it has partially closed a joint venture with Hanoi-based cold-storage warehouse operator SK Logistics. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
SK Logistics’ two cold storage warehouses, add almost 400,000 square feet in capacity in the north of Vietnam for Lineage. The company now has integrated assets and supply chain solutions in both northern and southern Vietnam, with facilities in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Read more>>
Singapore’s Tuan Sing Reports 38% Drop in Profit
SGX-listed Tuan Sing posted a 38.1 percent fall in net profit for the fiscal first half ended Jun 30, as the real estate company’s finance costs rose 57 percent to S$32.5 million ($23.9 million) on rising interest rates, the company said on Friday (Aug 11).
Net profit for the six months ended Jun 30 stood at S$6 million, compared with S$9.7 million posted the same period a year ago. The results translate to earnings per share of 0.5 Singapore cent, versus 0.8 Singapore cent a year ago. Read more>>
Hong Kong’s MTR Reports 12% Profit Dip as Real Estate Market Stutters
The MTR Corporation on Thursday reported an almost 12 percent drop in first-half profit compared with the same period last year, due largely to a plunge in earnings from its property development projects.
The railway firm posted a net profit of HK$4.17 billion ($533.5 million) for the six months ending June. It said profit from property development dived more than 90 percent to HK$732 million, after recording strong earnings from three projects in the same period a year ago. Read more>>
Ong Beng Seng’s Hotel Properties Ltd Reports $12.7M Loss
Hotel Properties Limited, whose managing director Ong Beng Seng is involved in a corruption probe, has reported a loss of S$17.2 million ($12.7 million) for its 1HFY2023, reversing from earnings $1.9 million in the year earlier.
Revenue in the same period was up 27.9 percent y-o-y to S$319 million, as its hotels see better performance with the resumption of travel. However, the company’s bottomline was weighed down by a loss of more than S$16 million for its associates and joint ventures, which HPL says suffered from higher borrowing costs. Read more>>
Hong Kong Homebuyers Pick Clean CK Asset Project After Discounts
Hong Kong’s homebuyers rushed to seize the cheapest new flats on sale in seven years, delivering a clear sign to developers that discounts are the best tools for surviving the doldrums in the city’s property market.
CK Asset Holdings sold all 626 units of the Coast Line II apartments in Yau Tong on offer in the current phase as of 9pm, according to Sammy Po Siu-ming, CEO of Midland Realty’s residential division for Hong Kong and Macau. Read more>>
SingHaiYi Singapore Condo Launch Sells Just 7 of 324 Units
The TMW Maxwell project in Singapore sold just seven out of a total of 324 units at its Phase One sales launch with the transacted price ranging between S$1.5 million and S$2.47 million, which works out to a per square foot (psf) range of S$3,143 to S$3,739.
The sales outcome for the mixed-use development project by CEL Development, Singhaiyi Investments and Chuan Investments was much lower than expected by market watchers who had anticipated a take-up rate of at least 20 percent, going by response to recent launches. Read more>>
Australia’s Lendlease Halts Work on San Francisco Project After Reporting Loss
Australian developer Lendlease Group has paused work on an $1.23 billion office and apartment complex in San Francisco in the troubled West Coast real estate market, it said on Monday, after reporting a drop in annual core profit.
California’s commercial real estate market is one of the hardest hit globally as home working culls demand for office space just as rising rates crunch property values and lift debt servicing costs. Read more>>
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