Soho China’s Pan Shiyi takes his feng shui seriously
The earth and water influence of China’s feng shui traditions have always seemed more art than science, but thanks to a Beijing court it now seems that a building’s feng shui status can be proved within a reasonable doubt, which ends up being good news for real estate personality Pan Shiyi and his company, Soho China – landing them at the top of Mingtiand’s news roundup today. Also in the headlines, data centres in Singapore and Hong Kong developers being accused of mistreating home buyers a bit too much. Read on for all these stories and more.
Soho’s Pan Shiyi Wins Lawsuit Over “Bad Feng Shui” Claims
Pan Shiyi, the founder of Soho China and an outspoken property developer with 20 million followers on his blog posts, has won a libel suit against a Chinese blogger who alleged that the bad feng shui in one of Soho’s projects is bad for tenants.
Zhuhai Shengun Internet Technology, which operates a blog called “S. Shengunju. S”, was ordered by the Beijing Chaoyang District Court to apologise to Pan, and pay Soho 200,000 yuan (US$29,800) in compensation. The blog wrote that Pan’s Wangjing Soho project, designed by the late architect Zaha Hadid, carries inauspicious forces that would be bad for its tenants. Read more>>
Singapore Data Centre Startup AirTrunk Raises S$450M
Data centre startup AirTrunk has raised S$450 million in debt and equity to help build its first Singapore facility as part of a multi-billion dollar plan to become a regional technology powerhouse.
The Goldman Sachs Group and TPG Sixth Street Partners-backed company has already spent more than A$1 billion (S$967 million) on two data centres in Australia and will open its Singapore facility in two phases, according to founder Robin Khuda. The first stage is expected to be ready by mid-2020 and will allow half of its planned 60 megawatt capacity to be sold to customers. Read more>>
HK Developers Investigated for Failing to Provide Information to Home Buyers
Hong Kong property developers are being investigated for suspected breaches of the law by failing to provide sufficient information when selling new flats to the highest bidders, the city’s housing chief said on Wednesday.
Frank Chan Fan told lawmakers that Hong Kong’s authority governing the sale of newly built properties was investigating cases in which there had been a lack of transparency. Read more>>
China Credit Loosening Hits the Housing Market
China’s year-long campaign of targeted stimulus to stoke the economy is making its presence felt in the property market, a sector that has the power to cement a recovery and improve the fiscal health of local authorities.
Project sales of major home builders rebounded in March after contracting in the first two months of 2019, thanks to easier financing from banks, looser restrictions on home buying and lower mortgage rates. Read more>>
Henderson Sells Out 76 of 100 Units in Hong Kong’s Cheung Sha Wan
Hong Kong developer Henderson Land sold 76 out of the 100 units on offer at The Addition, a new residential project in Cheung Sha Wan, on Tuesday, without offering a discount on the selling price.
The apartments, ranging from 220-277 sq ft in size, sold at an average selling price of HK$21,055 (US$2,683) per square foot. Most units were going for between HK$5 million and HK$6 million. Most apartments sold on Tuesday, the first day of sales, were one and two-bedroom units. Read more>>
Aging Industrial Buildings Turn Hot in Hong Kong
Property owners, investors and developers are taking advantage of a recent policy relaxation by the Hong Kong government, which seeks to encourage the conversion of old industrial buildings for commercial purposes, to generate higher rents and resale prices.
Hong Kong textiles company Lawsgroup, for instance, last week began demolition at Maxwell Industrial Building, a property it owns in Kwun Tong, after receiving approval from the city’s Town Planning Board last month. It acquired the property for about HK$1.4 billion (US$178 million) in 2017 and will redevelop it into a 33-storey office building for leasing, according to chief executive Bosco Law Ching-kit. Read more>>
Tune in again tomorrow for more news, and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter, or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.
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