Credit Suisse AM Buys Pair of Korean Warehouses and More Asia Real Estate Headlines 

A pair of South Korean warehouses lead the way in Mingtiandi’s roundup of Asia real estate headlines today with the news that a Swiss asset manager has snapped up two logistics facilities in Icheon for 120 billion won ($104 million).

In other news around the region, a Singapore-listed trust has purchased a Metro mall in China for RMB 1.374 billion, while a US retail giant famous for bargain groceries and cheap guns will use a portion of a $1.2 billion investment to set up new logistics centres in China.

Elsewhere, a Warburg Pincus-backed hotel chain seals a deal to buy out another hospitality group, and sales by developers in mainland China are slowing down amid home buying restrictions.

Credit Suisse Fund Buys Korean Warehouse Assets for $104M

A fund led by Credit Suisse Asset Management’s real estate investment arm has acquired two logistics centres in South Korea for 120 billion won ($104 million), which marked the European firm’s first investment in the country’s commercial property market.

The logistics facilities located in Icheon, southeast and one-hour drive from Seoul, were put up for auction by GIC in February, along with six other logistics centers owned by the Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund in South Korea, according to Credit Suisse on June 30. Read more>>

SGX-Listed Dasin Trust Buying Zhuhai Mall for RMB 1.4B

Singapore-listed Dasin Retail Trust will purchase Doumen Metro Mall in China for RMB 1.374 billion ($200 million), its trustee manager announced in a filing late on Sunday night.

The trustee manager plans to fund the acquisition through a mix of debt and equity financing. It is proposing a private placement of new units in Dasin Retail Trust at an illustrative issue price of S$0.836 ($0.62) to raise around S$68.8 million in gross proceeds, and to draw down some S$210 million in bank borrowings. Read more>>

Warburg Pincus-Backed Lemon Tree to Buy Keys Hotels for $68.2M

Lemon Tree Hotels Ltd, which operates an eponymous mid-range hotel chain, is acquiring Keys Hotels for INR 471 crore ($68.2 million at the current exchange rate) to expand its portfolio.

In a stock exchange filing, Lemon Tree Hotels said that it would buy out Berggruen Hotels, the parent of Keys Hotels, at an enterprise valuation of INR 605 crore ($87.6 million). Read more>>

Mirae Asset Makes $60M Top Bid for Citibank India HQ

Mirae Asset Global Investment, part of South Korea’s Mirae Asset Financial Group, has emerged as the front-runner to buy Citibank India’s former headquarters at Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) with an offer of INR 413 crore ($60 million), according to two people aware of the development.

If the deal goes through, this would be Mirae’s first investment in India’s commercial office market. So far, the Seoul-headquartered company has invested in residential projects in India through its $100 million Alternate Investment Fund (AIF) set up last year. Read more>>

Walmart to Pump $1.2B into its China Logistics Infrastructure

Walmart Inc plans to invest RMB 8 billion ($1.2 billion) in China over the next 10 years to upgrade logistics, the US retail giant said on its social media account on Monday. The company will also set up or renovate more than 10 logistics centres in the country.

The comments followed a meeting between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping over the weekend in Osaka, Japan that rekindled hope for a U.S.-China trade deal. Read more>>

Singapore Home Price Five-Year High May Be a Blip

Private residential property prices rallied in the second quarter to hit a five-year high, flash estimates noted yesterday. Increases in the city centre and city fringe helped lift the price index by 1.3 percent to 150.5 points – the highest since the first quarter of 2014, when the index was at 151.3. The rise for the three months to June 30 comes after a 0.7 per cent decrease in the first quarter.

Christine Li, head of research for Singapore and Southeast Asia at Cushman and Wakefield, said the increase was unexpected given renewed global market volatility and the China-United States trade war. Read more>>

China Developers Squeezed by Home Buying Curbs

Sales at China’s top 100 developers slowed significantly in the first half, and the outlook for the second half remains weak amid a tightening of home buying restrictions and a funding squeeze on builders in place since May, a report from property consultancy CRIC showed on Monday.

Excluding revenue from jointly developed projects, contracted sales at these 100 companies rose 4 per cent year on year to 3.9 trillion yuan (US$570 billion) in the first six months, a sharp drop from the 37.6 per cent surge in the first-half of 2018. Read more>>

India Mall Space to Grow By 69M Sqft in 3 Years

Despite rapid growth of e-commerce in the country, India is expected to get over 65 million sq ft of new mall space by 2022, with the top seven metro cities likely to house 72 per cent of this space, said a report.

According to property consultant Anarock, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad and Bengaluru would see the highest supply of mall space, while tier II and tier III cities are to see 18.2 million sq ft of new supply. 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.