The site of the world’s most expensive parking space
A world record parking space leads the way in Mingtiandi’s roundup of Asia real estate headlines today with the news that logistics tycoon Johnny Cheung Shun-yee has sold a bay in a Hong Kong office tower for just under $1 million.
In other news around the region, a $1.5 billion Hong Kong land auction flops, and a Canadian private equity giant completes its $557 million acquisition of four luxury hotels.
Elsewhere, WeWork staff are angered by the size of the boss’s payout, and a Hong Kong-based luxury hotel group lose a legal dispute over the Bangkok Peninsula.
Parking Spot at The Center Sells for World Record HK$7.6M
A parking bay at The Center – the 73-storey Hong Kong office tower that still holds the world record as the costliest commercial building ever sold – changed hands recently for HK$7.6 million ($969,000), making it the most expensive spot on earth to park a vehicle.
Johnny Cheung Shun-yee, one of the ten investors in the consortium that paid $5.15 billion last year for The Center, said that he had sold the last of his four car parks in the tower to someone who owns an office in the same building, declining to identify the buyer. Read more>>
HK$12B Hong Kong Land Auction Attracts Only 6 Bids
The Hong Kong protests continue to weigh on sentiment in the city’s property market – the world’s least affordable real-estate sector. A prime residential site next to the Wong Chuk Hang MTR Station, which would require a total investment of up to HK$11.8 billion ($1.5 billion), drew a lukewarm response on Wednesday, in a sign that there was little appetite for big-ticket deals.
A total of 38 players had submitted expressions of interest for a tender for the fourth phase last month, but only six submitted bids according to MTR Corporation, which is acting as the government’s agent. Read more>>
Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Loses Lawsuit Over Peninsula Bangkok
The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, which operates luxury brand The Peninsula Hotels, says it will “vigorously defend its rights” to manage The Peninsula Bangkok, following a legal win by the hotel’s Thai shareholder that paves the way for the management agreement to be terminated.
The 370-room riverside hotel is 50 percent-owned by the Phataraprasit family and 50 percent by The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels’ subsidiary in Bangkok. Read more>>
Yanolja Becomes Largest Shareholder of Zen Rooms
South Korean unicorn Yanolja said Oct. 23 that it has become the largest shareholder of ZEN Rooms, a leading budget hotel operator in Southeast Asia.
The latest investment came after the Seoul-headquartered accommodation-booking firm invested $15 million in the Southeast Asian budget hotel firm in July last year. Read more>>
Brookfield Completes INR 39.5B Acquisition of 4 Luxury Hotels in India
Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc. has completed its acquisition of luxury hotels from Hotel Leelaventure Ltd to mark its entry into the Indian hospitality sector with a brand that competes with the likes of Indian Hotel Co. Ltd’s Taj Hotels and EIH Ltd’s Oberoi Hotels.
The Mumbai-based hotel chain has sold four of its hotels located in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Udaipur along with a land parcel in Agra. The deal, first announced in March, excludes its fifth property, located in Mumbai and a land parcel in Hyderabad. The hospitality firm told stock exchanges that it received INR 39.5B ($557 million) from Brookfield on 16 October for the deal to repay its loans to banks and financial institutions. Read more>>
WeWork Staff Angered By Neumann Payout
WeWork will narrowly avoid financial ruin and in the process, reward its former leader, Adam Neumann, with as much as $1.2 billion.
The reaction from his former colleagues, who are still facing the prospect of mass job cuts and a corporate crisis: “You’ve got to be kidding me.” That was one of the comments posted on WeWork’s staff-wide communications system Tuesday, reflecting a broader mood throughout its headquarters in New York. Read more>>
Morgan Stanley Stars in Re-Launched $1.5B ESR IPO
Morgan Stanley has usurped rivals including Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs to lead the relaunch of a $1.45 billion IPO – Hong Kong’s second-largest this year – in an unusually brutal shuffling of banks’ roles on a big deal.
The Wall Street bank was approached by ESR Cayman and its main backer, Warburg Pincus, in August to develop a rescue plan for ESR’s initial public offering (IPO), according to two sources involved in the transaction, after the industrial property investor was forced to pull its original planned float in June. 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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