The InterContinental Hong Kong is closing for renovations
A Kowloon hotel owned by investors led by Gaw Capital leads the way in Mingtiandi’s roundup of Asia real estate headlines today with the news that it has started a two year renovation project which will kick off later this month.
In other news around the region, a US investment giant has been dropped from a South Korean pension fund’s pool of approved investment managers, while India’s property market is expected to take a battering as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Elsewhere, a China and Texas-based private equity firm has invested in a $115 million mainland China residential project.
InterContinental Hong Kong Shutting Down, Lays Off 500 Staff
The InterContinental hotel on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront in Hong Kong will lay off about 500 employees as it embarks on a two-year renovation project, a labour union has said. Gaw Capital Partners had led a consortium of investors in acquiring the 503 room hotel for $938 million in 2015.
Alex Tsui, chairman of the Hong Kong Hotel Employees Union, said the workers would have their last working day on May 1. “The workers learned about it today,” Tsui said. “They felt helpless.” Following its renovation, the hotel is set to revert to its original branding as the Regent Hong Kong. Read more>>
GIC, BlackRock Among Investors Losing Out in Luckin Coffee Disaster
The accounting scandal at Luckin Coffee, a start-up that aimed to displace Starbucks in China, has caught out several of the world’s most powerful investors.
BlackRock and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC were among those who invested in private funding rounds in the months before Luckin’s initial public offering last year. Louis Dreyfus, one of the world’s biggest traders of orange juice and coffee, and Melvin Capital and Centurium Capital were also backers. Read more>>
Century Bridge Invests in $114M Residential Project in Taicang
US-based private equity firm Century Bridge Capital announced this past week that it has invested in a residential development project in Taicang, China aimed at middle-income home buyers in the third-tier city bordering Shanghai.
Century Bridge invested through a joint venture with Hong-Kong listed developer Jingrui Holdings, with which Century Bridge has previously developed successful projects in Ningbo and Wuxi. Read more>>
China’s Retail Sector Struggles to Lure Customers Back
Shopping malls and stores in China have quickly reopened as the government promotes a return to business as usual, only to see consumers stay home and keep their purse strings tight or shop online.
Customer traffic is “less than half of usual levels,” said a worker at a Walmart store in a Shanghai suburb late last month. Shelves in the vegetable and meat departments were well-stocked, but few shoppers passed through the aisles during the normally busy late-afternoon hours. Even with its online delivery service, “sales are not growing at all,” the source said. Read more>>
Hong Kong Property Market Battered from All Sides
Hong Kong’s property market continues to be battered from all sides as the worsening coronavirus pandemic takes a toll on sales, prices, rents and even government land sales.
New home sales in March sank 40.4 percent month on month to 594 units, the lowest since December 2018 while overall transaction volume in the first quarter fell to a four-year low. This comes a day after secondary home prices in the city recorded their steepest drop in 15 months in February. Read more>>
India’s Property Prices to See Steep Fall
India’s real estate market is likely to see a significant price correction for the first time in a decade as the coronavirus pandemic stalls businesses across the country, according to a half dozen industry insiders.
“Property prices may come down by 10-20% across geographies, while land prices could see an even higher reduction of 30%,” said Pankaj Kapoor, chief executive of real estate consultancy firm Liases Foras, adding there hasn’t been such a correction since the global financial crisis. Read more>>
Hong Kong Developer Says Retail Landlords Must Cut Rents By Half to Survive
Hong Kong’s retail landlords might have to cut rents by 50 per cent to attract new tenants amid a worsening outbreak of the novel coronavirus, one of the city’s richest developers said.
“For these few months, you’ll probably see a 50 per cent cut in rents for the retail sector, or even more,” said Edwin Leong Siu-hung, founder of property developer Tai Hung Fai Enterprises. 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.
Leave a Reply