CK Asset Wins Residential Site in Hong Kong’s To Kwa Wan for $767M

CK Asset Holdings, the development flagship of magnate Li Ka-Shing, has bested six competing bids to win a 58,534 square foot (5,438 square metre) residential site in Hong Kong’s redevelopment hotbed of To Kwa Wan for HK$5.99 billion ($767 million), according to a press release from the city’s Urban Renewal Authority on Thursday.

The city’s second-largest developer by market capitalisation paid HK$11,381 per square foot of potential floor area for the site, which analysts noted was lower than market expectations of HK$6 billion to HK$6.9 billion, as Hong Kong grapples with a COVID-19 outbreak that has overwhelmed its healthcare facilities and which drove property sales to a 25-year low last month.

Having shouldered aside bids from developers such as city’s biggest builder Sun Hung Kai Properties and blue-chip competitor Henderson Land, CK Asset has won the rights to redevelop a residential and retail complex covering a total gross floor area of 526,807 square feet. Once completed, the project could be worth around HK$11 billion, according to an estimate from Alex Leung, senior director at local ​​surveying firm CHFT Advisory and Appraisal Limited.

“(We are) delighted to have won the bid,” said Grace Woo, CK Asset’s executive director, who noted in a statement that the project would bring “good returns”. As the site is located in To Kwa Wan, it would enjoy synergies with other URA redevelopment projects in the area, she added.

900 New Homes

Upon completion, new units at the project could sell for as much as HK$25,000 per square foot, according to Vincent Cheung, managing director at Vincorn. Construction costs would be around HK$5,000 per square foot, he estimated.

“The site covers four URA projects, and is expected to provide around 900 residential units upon completion, assuming the average unit size is 50 square metres (538 square feet),” said Ryan Ip, head of land and housing research at local think-tank Our Hong Kong Foundation.

Set to be completed by 2027, CK Asset’s To Kwa Wan project is less than a 900-metre (0.55-mile) walk from the To Kwa Wan MTR station, which was opened for service in June of last year. This connectivity will provide residents at the project with access within just a few rail stations to commercial districts such as Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui, noted Alkan Au, senior director of valuation and advisory services at JLL.

To Kwa Wan Turnout

CK Asset’s winning bid in To Kwa Wan was announced about one month after Hong Kong’s Hysan Development and privately-held Empire Group agreed to each acquire 25 percent stakes in Henderson Land’s residential project in the same neighbourhood for a combined HK$6.1 billion.

The developer’s newly-acquired site is located just between Henderson’s part-owned project on Bailey and Wing Kwong streets, and another plot on Hung Fook and Ngan Hon streets which Kerry Properties had acquired through a HK$5.58 billion tender in December of last year.

“We estimated that around 3,800 private housing units were completed in 2021, and around 4,000 units will be completed in 2022 in the larger Kowloon City District, which includes To Kwa Wan, Kai Tak, Ho Man Tin, and Kowloon Tong”, said Ip.

In terms of gross floor area, the CK Asset’s URA site is 27 percent smaller than the one acquired by Henderson and 19 percent larger than one awarded to Kerry Properties, said Leung, who noted that new developments located near MTR stations are often highly sought after, citing projects in the area such as Downtown 38, which was developed by the URA and Sun Hung Kai, and is now close to selling out.

“(To Kwa Wan) is attractive to developers for redevelopment primarily due to the support from URA through its aim to restructure and re-plan the area through redevelopment to enhance connectivity and community network, as well as the locality of the (the area)”, said JLL’s Au.

Pipeline Replenishment

CK Asset’s To Kwa Wan acquisition came about seven months after it had won a residential site in the New Territories’ Yuen Long area through a government land sale. In that August acquisition CK bested 15 rival bids to secure the New Territories’ plot for a greater-than-expected HK$716 million.

The developer is now adding to its development pipeline after recording HK$14.8 billion in property sales in the six-month period that ended 30 June 2021, which represented a 24 percent year-on-year slide.

In Hong Kong, the developer was hit with an even more pronounced decline in sales, with transaction volumes down 90 percent year-on-year to HK$609 million for the same period, according to its 2021 interim report.