Public Storage Backs Out of Aussie REIT Deal

Gaw Capital and Warburg Pincus have previously made bids for the Aussie self-storage REIT

A binned self-storage deal leads the way in Mingtiandi’s roundup of Asia real estate headlines today with the news that the highest bidder for an Australian REIT is said to have backed out of the deal, citing market conditions, having already seen off rival bids from Gaw Capital Partners and Warburg Pincus.

In other news around the region, co-working occupancy in India is said to have halved following a slowdown in the economy, while Hong Kong’s lucrative car park market stalls out.

Elsewhere, the co-founder of an Asia Pacific warehouse developer and fund manager has been linked to a £20 million investment in Scottish football club Rangers.

Public Storage Backs Out of Aussie REIT Deal

Market volatility appears to have claimed another potential M&A deal.

It is understood ASX-listed National Storage REIT suitor Public Storage has walked away, having been unable to firm up its A$2.40 ($1.44) a share indicative bid in light of market conditions.

It’s bad news for National Storage REIT investors, who only a month ago had a handful of cashed up suitors offering to take the company private. The highest bidder was US-listed Public Storage at $2.40 a share, which was enough to scare off underbidders Warburg Pincus and Gaw Capital Partners. Read more>>

Co-Working Footfall Halves in India

With many India Inc employees working from home due to the Covid-19 virus pandemic, operators of coworking spaces — which offer shared office spaces – have seen an almost 50 percent dip in footfalls, industry players told ET.

Many organisations that use these coworking firms to house their staff have started asking for flexible packages, limited to a few hours of usage, as opposed to monthly and annual plans they had opted for earlier. Read more>>

Kerry Properties 2019 Net Profit Falls 8%

Kerry Properties’ net profit for the year ended 31 December fell by 8 percent to HK$6.89 billion ($890 million) from HK$7.49 billion in 2018.

The economic slowdown in mainland China and Hong Kong has weighed on the performance, Kerry Group said. Read more>>

China Home Sales Rebound in March

Sales in 18 major Chinese municipalities climbed by a monthly 64 percent last week, and turnover has already recovered to about 90 percent of December’s weekly average, sector data show.

Sales shrank on China’s housing market last month from the impact of Covid-19, above all for secondhand properties, with 24 of 70 large and medium Chinese cities recording zero transactions, per figures the country’s National Bureau of Statistics issued yesterday. Read more>>

Wanda Sports Group Signs $240M Loan Facility

Wanda Sports Group, the sports unit of Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda, has agreed a $240m (€215.3m) senior term loan facility with Credit Suisse.

Wanda’s sports arm said that the loan agreement will enable it to refinance and prepay its existing senior 364-day loan facility (dated March 15, 2019), increasing its liquidity and reducing financing costs. Read more>>

Banks Tighten Up on Mortgage Offers in Hong Kong

Hongkongers are facing a crunch time as the coronavirus pandemic induced the deepest labour-market retrenchment since 2011, making lenders wary of lending to people in the most vulnerable sectors.

Some 134,100 people lost their jobs last month, according to government data, driving the unemployment rate up for a fifth straight month to a nine-year high of 3.7 percent. Within the consumption and tourism-related segment, the rate has reached the worst since the global financial crisis. Read more>>

Hong Kong Car Park Market Stalls

Hong Kong’s lucrative parking space market has almost ground to a halt as the combined impact of last year’s social unrest and the coronavirus pandemic have battered the local economy, analysts said.

Sales of residential parking bays slipped to a five-month low, plunging 65.6 percent to 205 transactions in February from the previous month, data from Centaline Property showed. The total value of parking spaces changing hands fell 76.2 percent to HK$352 million ($45.2 million). Read more>>

ESR Co-founder Linked to £20M Investment in Scottish Football

ESR co-founder Stuart Gibson is reportedly one of the mystery men who is poised to plough millions into Rangers.

The Ibrox club are reportedly closing in on £20 million ($24 million) worth of investment through a share issue which could bring about significant boardroom change. 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.