JLL Leads Asia Brokerage Wins with A$300M ARA Aussie Deal  Mingtiandi Broker Battle

JLL tops the deal charts this week after its team reportedly brokered the sale of an A$300 million ($201 million) Melbourne office development to a fund managed by ARA Asset Management.

Meanwhile in Korea, Savills is closing in on the country’s third-largest property deal ever and is also reported to have facilitated the sale by a KKR-led consortium of a 136,500 square metre (1.75 million square foot) logistics centre.

Singapore shophouses also made the deal list with Sakal Real Estate Partners understood to have introduced Aberdeen Standard Investments as the buyer of a row of the colonial-era buildings in Tanjong Pagar for the Scottish asset manager’s first purchase in the city.

With the lunar new year holiday having just passed and the coronavirus keeping investors at home the market has slowed in Hong Kong and China, but there are still new deals and appointments to report.

Keep reading for all the details on which brokerages won deals this month, and if your team has capital markets or leasing victories to report, please contact us here at Mingtiandi.

Australia

Market sources indicate that JLL represented a joint venture between Australia-based Golden Age and Time & Place in the sale of Victoria Place, an A$300 million ($201 million) Melbourne office development project. A source close to the transaction confirmed to Mingtiandi that a fund managed by ARA Asset Management had agreed to acquire the 25,250 square metre (271,789 square foot) office project on a forward-funded basis. The Warburg Pincus-backed asset manager is said to have secured Quadreal Property Group, the property arm of British Columbia Investment Management, as the deal’s primary investor. Read more>>

South Korea

According to an industry source, Savills has come a step closer to brokering the sale of one of Seoul’s largest office projects after Korea’s NH Investment & Securities was selected as the preferred bidder for Tower 2 of the city’s Parc 1 complex. The Seoul-based finance titan is said to have offered to pay approximately KRW 1 trillion ($863 million) to acquire the tower, which is expected to be completed this year, from developer Y22 Project Financing Investment. Based on the property’s 162,217 square metres (1.75 million square feet) of gross floor area, NH Investment & Securities will be paying KRW 6.16 million per square metre for the building. Read more>>

Mingtiandi has come to understand that Savills has facilitated the sale of the newly developed BLK Pyeongtaek Logistics Center near the South Korean capital. Acting on behalf of unnamed Korean institutional investors, Seoul-based Pebblestone Asset Management purchased the 136,500 square metre facility from a KKR-led consortium for an undisclosed sum. Read more>>

Singapore

Local Singapore property agent Sakal Real Estate Partners is understood to have introduced Aberdeen Standard Investments (ASI) as the buyer of a row of conservation shophouses in Tanjong Pagar for the Scottish firm’s first acquisition in Singapore. ASI purchased the properties at 48 to 56 Peck Seah Street from Hong Kong’s Phoenix Property Investors for S$S$54 million ($39 million) as the latest acquisition through its £500 million ($645 million) Global Real Estate Fund. Based on the combined gross floor area of 19,938 square feet (1,852 square metres), the ASI-managed fund has paid S$2,708 per square foot for the six shophouses. Read more>>

Colliers represented Heap Seng Group in its S$88 million acquisition of Wisma Gulab, a nine-storey industrial building at 190 MacPherson Road in Geylang, a Singapore district where more mainstream commercial activities are rapidly displacing its history as a red light district. Based on the building’s net leasable area of 127,240 square feet, the local household and kitchenware importer paid S$692 per square foot for the property, which occupies a freehold site area of 54,576 square feet. Read more>>

CBRE has been appointed as marketing agent on behalf of Oxley Holdings for the sale of The Rise @ Oxley, a two-storey commercial podium near the Orchard Road shopping belt. The freehold property at 71 Oxley Rise has an asking price of around S$62.5 million or around S$3,800 per square foot based on the strata area of 16,459 square feet. Read more>>

Local property brokerage PropNex Realty has been appointed as marketing agent for the collective sale of Wing Fong Mansions in Geylang at an asking price of S$176 million. Located at 12 Lorong 14, the condominium complex has 142,149 square feet of strata area and occupies a 47,880 square foot site. PropNex is also marketing the collective sale of the adjacent Wing Fong Court at a reserve price of S$108 million for the complex and its 29,334 square foot site. Read more>>

Hong Kong

Savills acted as auctioneer in the compulsory sale of a ten-storey industrial building in Cheung Sha Wan, according to a local press account. Together with the purchase of the remaining 14 percent of the property via the compulsory sale, Century City International spent a combined HK$395 million ($51 million) to acquire full ownership of the Wing Cheung Industrial Building on King Lam Street. Based on the permissible gross floor area of 66,000 square feet (6,132 square metres), the Hong Kong-listed property group has paid HK$6,003 per square foot for the building, which can be redeveloped as a 20-storey industrial building. Read more>>

JLL announced that it has been appointed to broker the sale of a shopping mall at Sha Tin’s The Palazzo residential development, which was developed by a joint venture between Sino Land and MTR Corporation. Market sources quoted in a local media press account indicate that the two-storey retail centre is expected to fetch HK$600 million. Located next to the Fo Tan MTR station, the property has a gross floor area of around 28,771 square feet. Read more>>

Savills has been appointed by Hong Kong ‘Shop King’ Tang Shing-bor to broker the sale of a large-scale development site in the New Territories comprised of five adjacent plots in Sai Kung at an asking price of HK$2.5 billion, according to local media. The existing industrial properties at 1, 2, 6, 7 and 9 Hong Ting Road, which occupy a combined site area of approximately 130,000 square feet, can be redeveloped for residential purposes, according to Savills. Based on the maximum gross floor area of 260,000 square feet, the project is expected to fetch HK$9,615 per square foot. Read more>>

Mainland China

JLL announced it has been appointed by China Construction Science & Technology, a unit of state-owned engineering firm CSCEC, to provide leasing agency services for its Star commercial development in Wuhan’s Optics Valley of China. Located in Hubei’s Pilot Free Trade Zone, the complex has 130,000 square metres (1.4 million square feet) of office space including three headquarters buildings, as well as an international conference centre, a Marriott hotel, 270,000 square metres of residential buildings, and 34,000 square metres of retail space. Read more>>

Savills announced that it has been appointed by CITIC Pacific as sole agent for the sale of the retail podium at CITIC’s Lake One development in Wuhan at an asking price of RMB 600 million ($86 million). Located on Financial Street at the junction of Jianshe Avenue and Xinhua Road in the city’s Hankou district, the podium has 12,349 square metres (132,924 square feet) of saleable floor area spread across three storeys. Read more>>

Research for this story was provided by Li Yanxia and Iris Poon. Mingtiandi’s Broker Battle series is published twice monthly on Tuesdays.