Blackstone chief Stephen Schwarzman has been doing more thinking about India lately
Crescendoing housing sales in Hong Kong and on the mainland dominate the headlines today with China’s government struggling to find ways to contain an asset bubble while continuing to fuel top-line economic growth. Leading the way, however, is the world’s biggest alternative investment firm, which is hoping to turn some of its Indian investments into that country’s first REIT. Read on for all these stories and more.
Blackstone Said Planning India’s First REIT
The world’s largest private equity manager Blackstone Group, which is also the most prolific investor in Indian commercial properties, is finalizing plans to raise Rs 4,000 crore (about $600 million), through a listing of Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) on the domestic stock exchanges, people directly familiar with the matter said.
This will perhaps be India’s first REIT listing and a test case for global investors who have poured big bucks into the country’s rent-yielding commercial assets, especially tenanted office spaces. Read more>>
Hangzhou Sells $1B in Homes in One Day
Earlier this month, the world’s state leaders attended the G20 summit in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, about 100 miles from Shanghai. Their arrival was accompanied by an ephemeral blue sky, and appears to have been followed by a property boom.
On Sunday (Sept. 18), 5,105 homes were sold in Hangzhou’s downtown, a record number for a single day in the second-tier city, figures (link in Chinese) from local housing authorities show. More than 3,200 were new homes and 1,800 were pre-owned. Read more>>
Hong Kong Real Estate Sales Surge 35% in September
Hong Kong’s property market continued to gather pace as investors joining a mad scramble for new flats pushed overall transactions up by 35 per cent in the first two weeks of this month, according to industry experts.
Led by a sharp surge in sales of new apartments, other types of real estate also benefited from an overall improvement in sentiment and recorded brisk sales for the period September 1 to 14, data from Midland Realty shows. Read more>>
Wanda Asking India for Tax Breaks on Industrial Park Proposal
Chinese real estate giant Dalian Wanda, which has announced a $10-billion investment in India, is seeking several concessions for the industrial park that it’s planning to develop in Haryana and its other investments. These relate to the route through which it will bring the money into India and concessions on various taxes.
Since many of these demands are outside the current overseas investment policy framework, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) is pursuing them with other ministries, departments and regulators, said officials with knowledge of the matter. Read more>>
Mainland Home Mortgages Jumped 50% in August
Bank lending soared last month in China from a two-year low in July, with a large share of the new credit going to people buying new homes, according to central bank data.
The figures released Wednesday by the People’s Bank of China confirmed trends in the economy that economists say point to weakness and could be troubling in the months ahead. Much of the lending is going into a housing market that economists have said is showing signs of overheating in some cities, and demand from companies remains anemic. Read more>>
China Pushes Smaller Developers Away From Bond Markets
China’s regulators are trying to persuade small property companies, particularly those with ratings below “AA” by domestic credit rating agencies, to abandon their bond issuance plans in third and forth-tier cities, in an attempt to curb runaway property prices and soak up excess supply.
Although home prices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are climbing, with firm demand, third- and fourth-tier cities continue to struggle under a large inventory of unsold flats, despite the country’s seemingly rigorous so-called “supply side reforms” – market-orientated measures focused on reducing over-capacity. Read more>>
Tune in again tomorrow for more news, and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter for headlines as they happen.
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