China’s Anbang Hires BoA to Sell Hotel Portfolio and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

The trials facing mainland corporates caught on the wrong side of Beijing policy changes loom large in today’s real estate headlines as Anbang and HNA try to sell off some of their harder-to-sell assets and mainstream developers face the prospect of cutting home prices in 2019. Plus, the US government steps into saga of Evergrande and Faraday Future cars that never were. All the details on these stories are waiting for you to click, scroll or tap.

Anbang Hires BoA to Sell Hotel Portfolio

Anbang Insurance Group has hired Bank of America Corp. to help sell a portfolio of U.S. luxury hotels formerly known as Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc. as it continues to reverse a global buying spree that raised the ire of Beijing, according to people familiar with the matter.

Anbang selected Bank of America to run the sale after seeking requests for proposals from an array of potential advisers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The portfolio includes the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, the Fairmont in Chicago, Essex House Hotel in New York and the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Read more>>

Banyan Tree Sells 18% of JV to China Vanke

A unit of resort operator Banyan Tree Holdings plans to sell 18.6 per cent of its stake in a joint venture (JV) with China Vanke, Banyan Tree Assets (China) Holdings (BTAC), to China Vanke for S$78.6 million.

This transaction brings BTC’s stake in the hotel and resort joint venture between the Singaporean hospitality chain and the mainland development giant to 4.2 per cent. BTC has the further right to sell nearly all – that is, up to 99 per cent – of the remaining shareholding in BTAC in or after eight years. Read more>>

Longfor CEO Says Mainland Developers Under Pressure to Cut Prices

Home prices in China will continue to fall, as new projects in particular face slowing demand, according to the boss of one of the country’s biggest property developers.

Shao Mingxiao, CEO of Longfor Group, said life is becoming tougher for builders after a slew of government measures in recent months to take the heat out of the market. Read more>>

Country Garden Sells $1B in Convertible Bonds

Country Garden Holdings Co, China’s biggest developer by sales, raised HK$7.83 billion (US$1 billion) in a convertible bond sale, as it takes on higher-cost funding to push out repayments.

The Foshan-based company priced its sale of five-year convertible bonds with a 4.5% coupon, according to a Hong Kong exchange filing Thursday. The securities carry a 30% conversion premium. The proceeds will be used to help fund a concurrent repurchase of zero-coupon convertible bonds due in January, the filing shows. Read more>>

China’s HNA Meets with Bad Bank as More Asset Sales Loom

Chinese conglomerate HNA Group has turned to state-owned China Cinda Asset Management Co (1359.HK), among the country’s largest bad debt managers, for advice on asset disposals, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

HNA Group’s vice president, Dennis Chen, the nephew of its chairman Chen Feng, met with Cinda President Chen Xiaozhou on Tuesday to discuss cooperation, according to the people, who declined to be named as the information is confidential. Read more>>

US Says Evergrande’s Faraday Buy Part of Tech Theft Campaign

The United States singled out a cash-strapped Tesla wannabe, a top university in Beijing and government-backed venture capital firms as part of China’s programme of unfair technology transfer and intellectual property theft, as the trade war between the world’s two largest economies escalate.

Those entities were identified in a 53-page report released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative ahead of a scheduled meeting next week between President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Read more>>

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