Hang Lung’s deposit for the Shouson Hill site is now a hostage to the US-China standoff
In today’s roundup of regional news headlines, a Hong Kong developer feels the heat from China’s row with the US over a property sale, Singapore’s Mapletree aims to raise €500 million for its first European office fund, and the online “meme” trade sending stocks skyrocketing gives a Chinese tycoon a new lease of life.
US-China Hong Kong Spat Puts Hang Lung in $132M Limbo
Hang Lung Properties, the Hong Kong buyer of the US government’s real estate asset in Hong Kong, may have up to HK$1.027 billion ($132.5 million) in limbo, as its purchase has been caught up in the souring diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing.
The developer paid HK$257 million as the 10 percent deposit for the HK$2.57 billion Shouson Hill villas on The Peak, with another HK$770 million to Hong Kong’s government as stamp duty, according to Hang Lung’s financial results filed with the Hong Kong stock exchange. Read more>>
Mapletree Seeks to Raise $606M for European Office Fund
Singapore-based real estate asset manager Mapletree Investments is targeting to raise €500 million ($606 million) for its first European office fund, Mapletree Europe Income Trust (MERIT), a spokesperson told DealStreetAsia.
Launched this month, the MERIT fund is expecting to achieve the target before the end of March 2021. Meanwhile, its targeted investment rate of return is 12 percent. Read more>>
Wanda Wins Big as AMC Gains on GameStop Frenzy
As the world marvels over the epic nerds versus Wall Street battle and GameStop Corp’s gravity-defying rally, Wang Jianlin, a Chinese billionaire who has practically disappeared from the media limelight, must be feeling vindicated — and grateful to US markets.
This is because the tycoon, who as recently as 2016 was China’s richest man, controls AMC Entertainment Holdings, one of the distressed firms that retail investors were betting would become the next GameStop. Wang’s Dalian Wanda Group had bought the movie theatre chain for $2.6 billion in 2012. As of 14 December 2020, the Chinese conglomerate owned 58.8 percent of AMC’s voting rights. Until online trading platforms paused the “meme” trade in GameStop and AMC on Thursday morning, the cinema company’s shares had soared over 800 percent to an $8 billion market cap. On Wednesday alone, its stock price was up more than 300 percent. Read more>>
Korea’s KB Securities Wraps Up Sale of UK Logistics Facility
South Korean brokerage firm KB Securities said Wednesday that it had completed the sale of a UK logistics facility in which it had jointly invested with LB Asset Management in 2017.
The two Korean companies bought the facility through funds designed to invest in UK property assets in 2017. The exact investment amount for the acquisition was not unveiled at the time. KB Securities and LB Asset Investment sealed the sale deal of the facility in January. The facility is leased to UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s until 2038. Read more>>
Gemdale Plans Medical Office Project in Texas Capital
Development continues at Mueller, the 700 acre (283 hectare) site of Austin’s former airport, with the announcement of a new office development, which will primarily serve the area’s ever-expanding medical community.
Gemdale USA Corporation, an affiliate of Hong Kong-listed Gemdale Properties & Investments, will develop a 130,000 square foot (12,077 square metre) five-storey building that will feature its own structured parking garage and a variety of green building elements. Read more>>
Top Mainland Cities Struggle to Cool Down Housing Markets
Local authorities of four major Chinese cities have erected barriers over the past week to prevent an unprecedented flood of cheap money unleashed by the central bank from buoying prices in the RMB 17.4 trillion ($2.7 trillion) housing market.
Shanghai, the country’s commercial hub, kicked off the market-cooling policies last Friday with some of the most draconian policies to limit the amount of money homebuyers can borrow for buying real estate. That was followed within days by housing authorities of Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, which together make up some of the biggest and most affluent population centres outside the Chinese capital. Read more>>
Low Interest Rates Help Hong Kong Avoid Decline in Home Prices
Hong Kong’s home prices narrowly avoided their first annual decline in 12 years as the fourth wave of coronavirus dealt a less savage blow than expected to December’s data.
The price index for lived-in homes in December fell 0.4 percent to 379.3, stretching a three-month losing streak to 1 percent, according to data from the Rating and Valuation Department released on Wednesday. Read more>>
Guocoland Trims Quarterly Loss on Lower Expenses
Guocoland Malaysia Bhd said its net loss for the second quarter ended 31 December 2020 narrowed to MYR 11.37 million ($2.8 million), from MYR 14.85 million a year earlier, on lower expenses and finance costs.
Revenue for the quarter increased 1.26 percent to MYR 91.32 million from MYR 90.19 million previously, the property development arm of Hong Leong Group said in a filing yesterday. Read more>>
Frasers Hospitality Trust ‘Confident’ Despite Dive in Returns
In a business update, Frasers Hospitality Trust’s manager said it’s confident in the long-term fundamentals of the markets it has presence in — Singapore, Australia, the UK, Japan, Malaysia and Germany — and will continue to prepare for the eventual recovery of international tourism.
“Given the sizeable domestic tourism markets in Australia, Japan and the UK, a rebound in domestic tourism is likely to help FHT’s properties in these countries recover sooner than the rest of its portfolio,” it said. Read more>>
CapitaLand China Trust Lowers Distributions 30.2%
Given that CapitaLand China Trust’s portfolio is “quite exposed” to the northern part of China, which has seen a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, Tan Tze Wooi, chief executive of the manager, said sentiment for CLCT remains “cautious”.
During an earnings call on Friday morning to discuss its FY20 results, he said: “This northern sector seems to be taking a little bit more of those COVID cases, so we do see that our performance will be susceptible to some of this resurgence.” Read more>>
Singapore Startup Offers Instant Loans for Real Estate SMEs
Small and medium enterprises in Singapore’s real estate and construction industries will be able to obtain upfront, collateral-free financing, under a new offering named Really eZFunds.
Proptech startup Really Singapore has partnered with peer-to-peer financing platform Validus to enable pre-approved working capital for SMEs that provide products and services to property owners and managers. Read more>>
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