MIrae Plans Anbang Hotel Deal Countersuit and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

Legal battles push viruses out of the headlines today as Korea’s Mirae Asset Management fires a fresh salvo in a court battle with China’s Dajia Insurance over a failed $5.8 billion hotel deal.

Also finding space in Mingtiandi’s real estate news roundup, a leading property consultancy says grade A office rents in Hong Kong’s priciest district could fall 30 percent this year, and some WeWork directors are taking their own set of legal steps against the firm’s majority owner, Softbank, in another escalating lawyer party. Keep reading for all these stories and more.

Mirae Says Will Countersue Over Failed $5.8B Anbang Hotel Deal

South Korea’s investment firm Mirae Asset Global Investments said Monday that it would countersue China’s Anbang Insurance Group in a widening dispute over an acquisition deal of luxury hotels in the US.

The legal action came after the Chinese insurer last month filed a suit with the Delaware Court of Chancery against the Seoul-based investment management firm for failing to complete payment of $5.8 billion for the takeover of 15 luxury hotels in the US. Read more>>

Central Office Rents Could Drop 30% Says JLL

Hong Kong’s major landlords of premium office space in Central are cutting rents by more than a third – returning them to 2017 levels – as the sharp economic contraction caused by the coronavirus forces corporate tenants either to downsize or move somewhere cheaper.

The vacancy rate in Central, the world’s costliest office market, climbed to a six-year high of 4.4 per cent in March, said JLL, with the company’s head of research for Hong Kong predicting that rents will drop 25 to 30 percent this year. Read more>>

Singapore April Condo Resale Volume Falls 57.3%

Resale volume for condominiums in Singapore tumbled 57.3 percent in April to 309 units resold, compared with 723 units in March, according to flash estimates from real estate portal SRX Property released on Tuesday.

Year on year, resale volume was 62.2 percent lower and 66.8 percent lower than the five-year average volumes for the month of April. Read more>>

WeWork Directors File Motion Against Softbank in Growing Legal Spat

A special committee of WeWork board members filed a motion in Delaware on Monday to prevent it from being disbanded, as it pursues legal action against majority owner SoftBank Group Corp over an abandoned $3 billion tender offer for the office space-sharing start-up.

It is the latest salvo in a heated legal dispute between the two sides. WeWork’s special committee, which represents minority shareholders in the company including its co-founder Adam Neumann, is contesting SoftBank’s decision to walk away from the tender offer agreed last year. Read more>>

How Xu Jiayin’s Billionaire Poker Club Helps Evergrande Stay Afloat

As billionaire Hui Ka Yan steers China’s most indebted real estate company through the worst economic slump in decades, he’s getting support from some familiar faces: his fellow property tycoons.

Mr Hui’s China Evergrande Group has been increasing financial ties with real estate empires run by three other Chinese magnates, according to company filings and media reports. Read more>>

Chinese Investments in US Dip to Lowest Level Since 2009

Chinese investments in the United States have fallen to the lowest level since the financial crisis of 2008-09, with the outlook for 2020 looking bleak amid bilateral tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) from China to the US dropped to $5 billion in 2019, the lowest level in a decade, according to a report by the National Committee on US China Relations and Rhodium Group. Read more>>

China’s Logistics Sector Boosted by Coronavirus Pandemic

Mainland Chinese and overseas investors are looking to increase their stake in China’s logistics property segment, which is expected to recover faster from the novel coronavirus pandemic, analysts said.

The sector has, in fact, benefited from the outbreak and the resulting containment measures, because of a rise in online shopping as well as increased use of the internet for office meetings and children’s schooling. Logistics properties include warehouses, cold storage facilities, data centres and logistics centres. Read more>>

Wanda Film to Open up to 70 New Cinemas in China

Wanda Film Holding, China’s biggest cinema chain operator controlled by billionaire Wang Jianlin, plans to build 50 to 70 new cinemas by the end of this year, shrugging off the crippling effects of the coronavirus pandemic on its business last quarter.

The expansion plan follows a State Council edict last week that put the economy on the mend, allowing some entertainment centres across the country to reopen after more than 100 days of shutdown. The news is a relief for the 64 billion yuan ($9 billion) local film industry struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic. 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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