HNA chairman Chen Feng is playing boardroom musical chairs with Hongkong Airlines
HNA’s ongoing Hongkong Airlines saga leads the Mingtiandi roundup of Asia news again today as the financially challenged mainland investment conglomerate plays out its own version of Game of Thrones in the boardroom.
In other news around the region, Guangzhou-based developer Agile thinks electric cars are the future, while a top Swiss investment bank sees ten more years of rising Hong Kong house prices in its crystal ball, and Singapore’s central bank transfers $33 billion to the state’s sovereign wealth fund.
A US private equity heavyweight also gets in the news today with news of a $107 million tech park investment in India, and a well known US hotel group is teaming up with a Sun Hung Kai joint venture to bring a boutique hotel to Shanghai.
Read on for all these stories and more.
HK Airlines President Quits as HNA Saga Continues
The managerial merry-go-round at the top of Hong Kong Airlines continued on Thursday, as a new CEO and finance chief joined from the HNA Group and the company’s president quit.
Sun Jianfeng, a director of Hong Kong Airlines Holdings, the carrier’s holding company, was installed as chief executive – a newly created role – and Li Neng was made chief finance officer, according to sources. Read more>>
Apollo Global in India Tie-up to Build $107M IT Park
Chennai-based real estate developer Olympia Group has formed a joint venture with US private equity firm Apollo Global to develop an IT park in the city.
Olympia Cyberspace, the real estate firm’s commercial vertical, will develop an IT park of around 1.1 million square feet in the central point of the city, a report in The Financial Express stated. Read more>>
UBS Says Rising HK Property Prices Here to Stay for 10 More Years
Hong Kong’s property bull market has another 10 years to run, as housing supply fails to keep up with the new population pouring in from the Greater Bay Area, said the Swiss bank UBS, which correctly picked the bottom in the city’s short-lived price correction last year.
Home prices will continue spiralling upwards as buyers compete to get their hands on residential property, according to the bank’s real estate research team, led by John Lam. Hong Kong’s annual housing stock is estimated at 45,000 homes a year, 25 per cent short of UBS’ calculation. Read more>>
SG’s Central Bank to Transfer $33B to GIC
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will be transferring S$45 billion ($33 billion) from the official foreign reserves (OFR) in May to GIC, the city state’s sovereign wealth fund, in a move economists say is necessary to ensure adequate sustainable return on investments in the current protracted low inflation and interest rate environment.
And this has implications for public spending, as the returns from the investment of reserves have become an increasingly important component of the government budget in the face of rising social and healthcare spending. Read more>>
Hyatt Strikes Deal with Sun Hung Kai JV for Shanghai Boutique Hotel
Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE:H) announced today that a Hyatt affiliate has entered into a management agreement with Shanghai Xintian Real Estate Co Ltd, a joint venture by Shanghai Industrial Urban Development Group Limited (SIUD), Sun Hung Kai Properties Limited (SHKP), and Shanghai Minhang Urban Construction Investment Co., Ltd. for a Hyatt Centric hotel in the rising southwestern Shanghai.
The 186-room hotel will be situated in a pivotal location, ideal for socially connected guests to find share-worthy experiences in the heart of the fast-growing city of Shanghai. Read more>>
Agile Joins Li Ka-shing in Backing HK-Listed Tesla Rival
Guangzhou-based property developer Agile Group has made a foray into new energy vehicles (NEVs), teaming up with electric vehicle technology provider We Solutions Ltd to develop cars and build towns set up for NEVs.
As part of the partnership, We Solutions said it sold HK$203 million ($26 million) worth of new shares to Agile, giving the property developer a 5.89 percent stake in the electric vehicle (EV) technology company’s enlarged share base. Read more>>
Singapore’s HDB Relaxes Housing Loan Rules
Singaporeans can now tap in to more of their Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings when opting to buy older properties.
Starting today, those looking to buy homes will be able to use the maximum allowed funds from their CPF as long as the property’s remaining lease can cover the youngest buyer till they are 95 years old. Read more>>
CapitaLand Creates Digital Memory of $535M SG Heritage Building
Drone scans of Pearl Bank Apartments’ facade, and 3D laser scans of its various types of apartments and common areas, have been documented by CapitaLand ahead of the structure’s redevelopment.
In a statement yesterday, CapitaLand said it spent three months methodically capturing the horseshoe-shaped block in Outram which was completed in 1976 to provide homes for the middle class. 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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