The lights are on but more people may be working from home instead of in HSBC’s Hong Kong HQ
In today’s roundup of news headlines, HSBC prepares to let Hong Kong staff work as many as four days a week from home, giant Singaporean developer CapitaLand clenches green loans to finance tech parks in India, and an SL Green-led joint venture closes on a $1.3 billion construction loan for the One Madison Avenue redevelopment project in New York.
HSBC to Let HK Staff Work at Home Four Days a Week
HSBC will allow some of its Hong Kong employees to work as many as four days a week at home as lenders embrace more flexible working arrangements after months of working remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The bank, one of Hong Kong’s three currency-issuing lenders, will allow a variety of options for employees to work remotely if a staff member’s role allows them to do so, according to revised human resources guidelines seen by the South China Morning Post. Any changes in work arrangements will follow a discussion with their manager. Read more>>
SMBC Invests $30M in GIC-Backed Fintech Startup
GIC-backed fintech OakNorth has secured a $30 million investment from SMBC, with the Japanese bank driving data-backed lending in emerging markets such as Indonesia.
SMBC’s investment via a secondary sale comes amid a recent offloading by Indiabulls Housing Finance at a 25 percent discount to its previous valuation. Read more>>
Roxy-Pacific to Buy Singapore Residential Site for S$93M
Property and hospitality group Roxy-Pacific Holdings’ wholly owned subsidiary RL East will fork out S$93 million ($69 million) to acquire a freehold residential development site near the Aljunied and Mountbatten MRT stations.
Located at 217-223A Guillemard Road and 1-21A Jalan Molek, the property occupies a total land area of about 3,450 square metres (37,131 square feet). Read more>>
CapitaLand Secures Green Loans in India
CapitaLand’s first foray into sustainable finance in India will be used to finance the development of its green-certified International Tech Parks in Chennai, Gurgaon and Pune, it announced in a statement on Wednesday.
The four-and-a-half-year INR 6.25 billion ($84 million) and three-year INR 4.25 billion green loans provided by DBS will be used to finance the development of Phase 1 of International Tech Park Chennai, Radial Road and Phase 1 of International Tech Park Gurgaon, respectively. The four-year INR 6.5 billion green loan provided by HSBC India will be used to finance the development of International Tech Park Pune, Kharadi. Read more>>
Foreign Investors Pile Back in as China Recovers
Ivanhoe Cambridge, a group that invests in international property on behalf of the Quebec state pension system, had already put $2 billion into China’s logistics sector over the past few years. In June, as coronavirus was raging across the world, it decided to add another $400 million to the total.
“We’ve certainly been trying to increase our exposure to logistics in China as quickly and as responsibly as we can,” said George Agethen, senior vice-president for Asia Pacific at the Canadian company, who points to a “difficult environment” in which to make an investment decision. Read more>>
SL Green JV Lands $1.3B Construction Loan
SL Green Realty Corp and its joint venture partners have closed on a $1.3 billion construction loan for the One Madison Avenue redevelopment project. The loan is the largest New York City office construction facility so far in 2020, according to SL Green, which is working with the National Pension Service of Korea and Hines to build the office tower.
The loan was provided by Wells Fargo, TD Bank, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and Axos Bank. The facility has a term of up to six years, with a floating interest rate of 3.35 percent over LIBOR, and the ability to reduce the spread to as low as 2.5 percent upon meeting certain leasing and completion milestones. Read more>>
Chinese Firms Dominate VN Industrial Land Investment
Chinese manufacturing companies accounted for 88 percent of the $1.57 billion poured into Vietnam’s industrial parks in the first nine months of 2020.
Among 20 key investments in the north and south regions, 15 were made by companies from mainland China, Taiwan or Hong Kong, according to a recent report by real estate consultancy Savills. Read more>>
Tune in again soon for more real estate news and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter, or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.
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