Lohas Park MTR Project Pulls 11 Bids and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

The sale of a jumbo-sized housing plot in the New Territories has brought Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation a bumper crop of bids as the real estate market in the world’s priciest city shows signs of recovery.

The Asian financial hub’s ever steeper prices also played a role in reports that a paper tycoon paid HK$1.45 billion for Hong Kong’s biggest home purchase of the year and there’s also news from Singapore, where ARA-managed Suntec REIT raised a bit more cash for its portfolio of commercial assets.

Keep reading for all the stories in Mingtiandi’s news roundup from around the region.

1,850 Unit Lohas Park MTR Project Pulls in 11 Bids

The MTR’s Lohas Park has drawn 11 bids for the latest phase of its residential development in the New Territories, as developers vie for the land parcel near the sole shopping centre in Hong Kong’s largest residential community.

Eleven bids were submitted for the plot, which can accommodate up to 1,850 homes on 950,000 square feet (88,200 square metres) of gross floor area. That translates into more than one fifth of the 8,800 private flats expected to be built on the 15 private residential sites to be sold by the government in the coming planning period. Read more>>

Hong Kong Paper Tycoon Said to Be Buyer of HK$1.45B Luxury Home

Raymond Lee Man Chun, a veteran real estate investor and co-founder of Hong Kong’s largest paper producer Lee & Man Paper Manufacturing, is believed to be the owner of the most expensive property sold this year in the city.

Lee and his wife Wong Man Yi are directors of a privately owned company called Winner Progress Limited, which paid HK$1.45 billion (US$185 million) to buy 8 Headland Road in Repulse Bay from the American International Assurance Company (AIA), according to Hong Kong’s company records. The April 18 sale of the three-storey property, comprising nine apartment units, was disclosed by the Land Registry on April 23. Read more>>

Suntec REIT Raises S$200M Through Private Unit Offering

Suntec Real Estate Investment Trust’s (Suntec REIT) manager has closed the book of orders for its private placement of new units in the REIT to raise gross proceeds of about S$200 million.

The bulk of the proceeds will go towards financing potential acquisitions of properties in Australia, ARA Trust Management (Suntec) Limited said on Thursday (April 25) before the market opened. Read more>>

Seoul Square Deal Boosts Korean Investment Volume by 68%

The volume of investment in commercial real estate in Seoul and the adjacent Bundang district came to 1.9 trillion won ($1.7 billion) through 20 deals in the first quarter of this year, data showed on April 24.

The figure rose 68 percent on-quarter, amid the realty market’s potential to deliver long-term returns, according to an estimate by commercial real estate service firm Cushman & Wakefield’s Seoul unit.

Of the entire transactions, the purchase of Seoul Square by Seoul-based investment bank NH Investment & Securities from Singapore-based Alpha Investment Partners took up over half, at 988 billion won. Read more>>

Indiabulls Shares Jump 11% on News of London Divestment

Indiabulls Real Estate shares rose as much as 11 per cent to Rs 117.2 in Wednesday’s session after the company said it is to divest Century Ltd, the firm that houses Hanover Square property, London, to its promoter for 200 million pounds ($258.7 million).

The divestiture is in the light of sluggish London property market due to Brexit uncertainty, the company said. It added that it has decided to focus only on Mumbai & Delhi’s National Capital Region (NCR) markets. Read more>>

HNA Says $1B Sale of Container Business Back on the Shelf

HNA Group Co has shelved a sale process for its container leasing business Seaco after failing to reach an agreement on valuation, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The Chinese conglomerate is no longer in active discussions about a sale and plans to keep the business for now, they said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. HNA had been seeking more than US$1 billion for Seaco, which is controlled by the group’s Shenzhen-listed Bohai Leasing Co unit, the people said. Read more>>

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