Country Garden Eyes Smaller Cities for Growth and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

China’s top two property developers are going in different directions with Country Garden seeing its future in small cities and counties while Evergrande is increasing its investment in the electric car market. Meanwhile Club Med is planning to open a winter retreat with a ski school near Beijing while Warburg Pincus is said to be gambling on a takeover of a seaside casino in southern Vietnam. All these stories and more await you in Mingtiandi’s roundup of news from around the region.

 Country Garden Focuses on Small Cities

Wherever its rural migrant workers will go, Country Garden Holdings, China’s biggest property developer by sales, will follow.

“I think highly of small cities and counties. The future of Chinese [property] lies where thousands of migrant workers will settle down,” Yeung Kwok Keung, 64, the company’s chairman, said during its result briefing on Monday.

Country Garden reported profit slightly ahead of estimates. The Guangdong based builder’s core profit rose 38.2 percent last year to RMB 34.13 billion  ($5.08 billion). That just beat the average estimate of RMB 33.8 billion among analysts polled by Bloomberg, but was a far cry from the 126 percent spike seen in 2017. Its revenue jumped by two thirds to RMB 379 billion, against a RMB 350 billion estimate. Read more>>

Evergrande Racing with Carmakers to Win Electric Vehicle Race

China’s electric car market continues to grow, despite an overall slowdown in car sales. That’s drawn a somewhat unusual competitor into the field: real estate giant Evergrande Group, the country’s second largest property developer by sales.

On Friday (March 15), the company’s Hong Kong listed subsidiary announced it had acquired a 70 percent stake in auto parts maker TeT Drive Technology Co. for RMB 500 million ($75 million). This follows a billion dollar acquisition this year alone of a carmaker and a battery manufacturer by the subsidiary, Evergrande Health Industry Group. Read more>>

Embassy Office Parks REIT’s IPO Sells One-Fifth of Shares on Opening Day

The initial public offering of Embassy Office Parks REIT, a real estate investment trust formed by Bengaluru developer Embassy Group and private equity firm Blackstone Group, was covered a fifth on the first day of the issue on Monday.

The public offering of 71.26 million units was subscribed 20 percent after receiving bids for 13.93 million units at the end of the day, stock exchange data showed.

The quota for institutional investors was covered 30 percent while the portion set aside for other investors, including corporate houses and non-retail individual investors, was subscribed seven percent. Read more>>

Hana Fin-Led Group Poised to Buy $185M Prague Office Complex

A consortium led by Hana Financial Investment Co. Ltd. and Hana Alternative Asset Management Co. Ltd. has been chosen as the preferred buyer for a three building office complex in Prague, Czech Republic, which is valued at around KRW 210 billion  ($185 million).

The two units of South Korean banking group Hana Financial Group joined hands with White Star Real Estate, a Europe based asset manager, to acquire Rustonka Business Centre in Karlin, part of Prague 8 municipal district, according to sources with knowledge of the matter on March 12. Read more>>

Project in SG’s Tampines Accelerates Sales Launchon High Demand

Treasure at Tampines drew a strong crowd of close to 7,000 people by Sunday night since it opened its sales gallery to the public last Friday (March 15). Responding to the encouraging turnout over the weekend, Singaporean developer Sim Lian Group said that it has decided to bring forward the sales launch to March 23.

The site area, which spans 11 football fields, contains 29 twelve storey blocks. The indicative average selling price is said to be $13,777 a square metre ($1,280 per square foot). The project is a redevelopment of the former 560 unit, privatised HUDC estate, Tampines Court. Sim Lian had purchased the site en bloc in August 2017 for $970 million ($7,276 psm or $676 psf per plot ratio). Read more>>

Warburg Pincus Said Aiming for VN Casino Acquisition

The Grand Ho Tram integrated resort (IR) in Vietnam reportedly has a target on its back. According to Inisde Asian Gaming (IAG), the venue has been singled out for possible acquisition by Warburg Pincus, LLC, a US based private equity firm. The rumours have yet to be confirmed by Warburg, which already controls about ten percent of the resort.

Ho Tram is on Vietnam’s southeast coast about two hours from Ho Chi Minh City. Phase one of the project cost approximately $600 million to complete and offers a casino with space for 90 gaming tables and a hotel with 541 keys. It also features a golf course designed by Greg Norman and, this past December, opened a second hotel that brought the total number of rooms to 1,100. Developer Ho Tram Project Co. asserted when the second hotel opened that it had already injected, and will inject a total of $1.1 billion into the project. Read more>>

Fosun to Open Club Med Ski Resort Near Beijing

Club Méditerranée, which operates all inclusive holiday resorts around the world, plans to open a winter retreat with a ski school near Beijing to take advantage of the expected popularity of snow sports during the 2022 Winter Olympics in the Chinese capital.

The company, commonly known as Club Med, will  join several ski resorts – including the Secret Garden resort by Malaysia’s Genting Berhad, and the privately held Wanlong –in the Chongli district, about three hours drive from Beijing.

“There is a shortage of ski resorts and facilities in China,” said Qian Jiannong, chairman and chief executive officer of Club Med’s owner Fosun Tourism Group, in an interview with South China Morning Post, declining to give details. “We are planning to open more ski resorts in northern China and in Hebei, close to Beijing.” 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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