China Developer Shares Drop Nearly 10% and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

In today’s roundup of regional news headlines, Chinese developer shares dive amid a broader stock rout, a “quadruple whammy” hits Singapore’s new home sales, and an FBI agent gives damning testimony against financier Jho Low in Malaysia’s 1MDB case.

China Developer Shares Take Sharpest Dive Since 2008

Chinese developer shares dropped the most since the global financial crisis on Tuesday as a rout in the nation’s equity market hit the troubled real-estate sector especially hard.

A Bloomberg Intelligence equity gauge of the nation’s builders sank 9.7 percent, the sharpest one-day decline since October 2008. Developer bonds also tumbled further, with high-yield dollar notes on pace for a 15th consecutive drop, according to a Bloomberg index. On Monday, yields topped 27 percent for the first time. Read more>>

Singapore New Private Home Sales Fell 22% in February

New private home sales in Singapore slumped in February under a “quadruple whammy” from the Chinese New Year lull period, a declining housing supply, cooling measures and global uncertainties from the Russia-Ukraine war.

Developers in Singapore sold 527 new private homes in February, down 22.5 percent from January’s 680 units, data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority showed Tuesday.  The figures are also 18.3 percent lower than the 645 new private homes sold in February 2021. Read more>>

Condo Project in Central Singapore Relaunched for Sale at $687M

The Chuan Park condo complex at Singapore’s Lorong Chuan has been relaunched for sale at the indicative price of S$938 million ($687 million) — the same asking rate as an earlier tender attempt late last year.

The 99-year leasehold condominium was last put up for tender from 5 October to 18 November 2021, before the latest cooling measures were rolled out by the government in December. After the tender closed, it went into private treaty negotiations. Read more>>

Jho Low Stole $1.42B From Goldman 1MDB Deals, FBI Agent Says

Fugitive financier Jho Low, the alleged mastermind of the 1MDB scandal, stole $1.42 billion from three bond transactions that Goldman Sachs arranged for the Malaysian wealth fund, an FBI agent who traced the funds testified.

Agent Eric Van Dorn took the stand Monday at the trial of ex-Goldman banker Roger Ng in a federal court in New York. In addition to his testimony about Low, he told the jury that former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak reaped $756 million of the $6.5 billion raised in the bond offerings, while his stepson, Riza Aziz, pocketed $238 million. Read more>>

Singapore’s URA Bars Strata Subdivision in Key Parts of Central Area

Commercial developments and the commercial component of mixed-use developments located in prominent areas and routes in Singapore’s Central Area are no longer allowed to be strata subdivided into individual units.

This restriction also applies to redevelopment proposals under the Central Business District Incentive and Strategic Development Incentive schemes. Read more>>

China’s Jan-Feb Property Investment Rises Slightly on Easing Measures

China’s property investment bounced slightly over the first two months of 2022 after a fall in December, official data showed Tuesday, helped by the easing of property curbs to relieve a liquidity crisis faced by developers and stoke buying interest.

Property investment rose 3.7 percent from a year earlier to RMB 1.45 trillion ($230 billion) in the first two months of 2022, following a 13.9 percent slump in December. Read more>>

DLF to Develop Chennai Office Building for $71M

Indian realty major DLF on Monday announced an investment of INR 550 crore ($71 milion) to construct a 1 million square foot (92,903 square metre) office building for Standard Chartered Global Business Services’ largest campus globally.

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin laid the foundation stone of the office campus in the DLF Downtown project at Taramani in Chennai. Read more>>

Keppel Land to Wholly Divest Stake in HCMC Project for $98.6M

Keppel Land, a wholly owned subsidiary of Keppel Corporation, is divesting of its entire stake in a company that holds a 42 percent share in a Ho Chi Minh City residential project for $98.6 million.

The planned divestment is said to be in line with Keppel’s Vision 2030 asset monetisation plans to unlock capital, which can then be used for new growth opportunities. Read more>>

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