Sydney Shopping Centre Sold to Pub Baron for $311M and More APAC Real Estate Headlines

Australia’s latest shopping centre deal leads today’s look at real estate news from around the region, with a hospitality billionaire picking up a retail asset in Sydney. Also making our regional headline roundup is a court victory for India’s Adani and problems for a GIC-backed buyout of a Tokyo-listed REIT. 

Arnaout’s Iris Capital Buys Sydney Shopping Centre for $311M

Australian billionaire Sam Arnaout has signalled his confidence in the retail property market with the purchase of the St Ives Shopping Village in Sydney for A$450 million ($311.2 million), in the largest neighbourhood shopping centre deal in the country’s history.

The acquisition, which was settled just before Easter, is the latest move by Arnaout’s firm, Iris Capital, to expand its holdings beyond pubs and hospitality. The transaction will see the Katz family’s EK Nominees exit, with Iris adding its first large-scale shopping centre to its collection of more than 35 pubs and hotels. Read more>>

India’s Adani in Line to Take Over Bankrupt Developer After Court Case 

India’s top court on Monday rejected billionaire Anil Agarwal-led ‌Vedanta’s plea to pause the acquisition by Adani ‌Group of a bankrupt real estate giant, which includes a $4 billion ​pool of prized assets including India’s only Formula One track.

Agarwal’s Vedanta is fighting in courts against the decision of a lenders’ panel to give the assets ‌of bankrupt Jaiprakash Associates ⁠to fellow tycoon Gautam Adani’s group, setting up a battle between billionaires for assets ⁠including homes, power, cement plants and the Buddh International Circuit track near New Delhi. Read more>>

GIC, Tosei Again Extend Deadline in $373M Bid to Buy Japan’s Sankei REIT

GIC and Tosei Asset Advisors have extended their $373 million tender offer for Sankei Real Estate to 16 April — the fourth extension since the bid launched in January — after the Tokyo-listed REIT disclosed that its Fukuoka Green Building faces a prolonged vacancy following the departure of anchor tenant Hitachi. 

In a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Sankei pointed to rising construction costs and labour shortages delaying renovation work and warned of a significant decline in revenue, profit and distributions for the fiscal period ending February 2027. The offerors maintained their bid price of JPY 125,000 per unit. Read more>>

Australian Senior Living Developer Lincoln Place Said Deferring $692M Sale

Aussie retirement living developer Lincoln Place is understood to have hit the brakes on its sale campaign that was due to get underway after Easter amid market volatility. Sources say they had been informed in the past fortnight that the deal plans would be suspended.

It comes not only after two interest rate hikes linked to high inflation but as development costs escalate, partly brought on by the increased fuel costs linked to the conflict in Iran. A sale process for the A$1 billion ($691.9 million) retirement business was initially expected to launch around March, and then that got pushed back to after Easter. Read more>>

Singapore IPO Rebound Under Threat as War Cools Market Sentiment

Singapore’s initial public offering market had a vibrant six months up to 31 March, with 10 primary and secondary listings on the SGX — more than double the four listings during the same period a year earlier. 

Several listings saw outsized demand from investors, including Soon Hock Enterprise, an industrial developer, and The Assembly Place, a co-living disruptor. Their IPOs were oversubscribed 17 and 35 times, respectively, indicating strong retail and institutional appetite for their offerings. Read more>>

Indian Asset Manager Expands to Real Estate With Hire of Former Walton Street Team

India’s Neo Alternative Asset Managers has entered the real estate sector with the recruitment of a trio of former executives from Walton Street India (the Indian affiliate of Chicago’s Walton Street Capital) who later went on to co-found local real estate player WSB Partners.

Kaushik Desai, Vinit Prabhugaonkar and Vimal Jangla are now part of the Neo AAM team, where they will target structured and opportunistic investments across residential, industrial, logistics and commercial real estate in India’s major urban markets, according to the announcement. Read more>>

Chinese Banks Offering Mortgage Holidays as Housing Crisis Wears On

China’s unrelenting housing downturn is forcing the country’s banks to confront a thorny issue: sinking real estate values are pushing millions of mortgages underwater, increasing the risk of losses for lenders and property owners.

Behind the scenes, Chinese bankers and officials are getting creative to contain the fallout. Several state-owned banks have approached cash-strapped borrowers and offered them payment holidays on their mortgages for as long as two years, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing their firms’ policies. Read more>>

Singapore Kicks Off Trial Over Bloomberg Reports of Ministers’ Home Deals 

Singapore cabinet ministers K Shanmugam and Tan See Leng hauled financial news outlet Bloomberg and one of its reporters to court Tuesday for defamation over an article that mentioned their personal property transactions.

According to statements of claim filed in the High Court, Coordinating Minister for National Security Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan said parts of the article, titled “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”, were false, baseless and calculated to disparage and impugn them. Read more>>

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