Chinese Developers Feast on Competitor Debt and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

Some of China’s largest developers may be enjoying the country’s current economic squeeze by engaging in some financial cannibalism, as giants such as Country Garden and China Vanke, with the help of private equity investors, fill their plates with a bumper crop of offshore debt issued by some of their more stressed rivals.

Also in the news today, HNA continues its crash financial diet, slimming down by selling off a more than 3.5 percent holding in Germany’s Deutsche Bank and in Singapore, Frasers Hospitality names a new CEO. All these stories and more await you in our round-up of the biggest real estate stories from around Asia.

Mainland Developers Buy Competitor Debt for Yield and Acquisitions

Property developers have found a new play on the Chinese market: buying up the soured debts of their rivals. China’s economic slowdown has resulted in record sales of bad debt, with RMB 1.75 billion ($259 billion) in non-performing loans sold off to distressed asset investors last year, the most in nearly two decades.

Now Country Garden’s Paladin Asset Management division has launched a $1 billion fund with property investor Gaw Capital to purchase mainland developer debt, with Warburg Pincus and China Vanke having launched similar efforts. Read more>>

HNA Sells Down Deutsche Bank in Financial Crisis

Chinese conglomerate HNA has cut its stake in Deutsche Bank to 6.3 percent, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That marks a reduction from 7.64 percent of voting rights reported in the most recent filing in Germany.

HNA initially bought into Deutsche Bank in early 2017, amassing a stake of close to 10 percent. But it has since trimmed its stake in installments. Even with the reduced holding, would remain one of the largest shareholders in Germany’s largest lender. Read more>>

Frasers Hospitality Appoints Former Head of HKLand SG Unit as CEO

Koh Teck Chuan, formerly chief executive at Hongkong Land subsidiary MCL Land, has been appointed chief executive of Frasers Hospitality, which is part of Frasers Property. The 59-year-old’s appointment is effective from Feb 19.

Last week, Frasers Property announced that Frasers Hospitality’s long-time CEO, Choe Peng Sum, retired on Feb 15. The 58-year-old assumed the role of senior adviser to parent Frasers Property on Feb 16. Read more>>

Bahrain’s Investcorp Launches India Operation With $450M in AUM

Bahrain-based Investcorp has announced the launch of Investcorp India Asset Managers Limited and the opening of its first India office. The office will have $450 million assets under management (AuM) and a team of 21 investment professionals, the company said in a statement.

The launch was announced by Mohammed Alardhi, executive chairman in the presence of Deepak Parekh, member of the Investcorp International Advisory Board and Rishi Kapoor and Hazem Ben-Gacem, co-CEOs of Investcorp. Read more>>

China Rolls Out Timeline for Greater Bay Area Scheme

Chinese authorities have unveiled the timeline to further integrate Hong Kong and Macau into the mainland under the ambitious Greater Bay Area plan to create a cluster of world-class cities in southern China.

An 11-chapter document released on Monday night (Feb 18) by the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party stated that the 11 cities in the plan would boost collaboration by 2022 in areas including the central pillar of science and technology, intellectual property rights and even ecological conservation. Read more>>

Tune in again tomorrow for more news, and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter, or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.

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