Chairman of China’s Agile Sells HK Flat at 54% Loss and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

The latest stumble by a mainland real estate tycoon leads today’s collection of real estate headlines from around the region, as the chairman of China’s Agile Group sells a Hong Kong home at more than half off. Also in the news is a profit dip for Singapore’s UOL and US data centre giant Equinix declaring an investment plan for a Hong Kong facility.

Chairman of China’s Agile Sells Hong Kong Apartment at 54% Loss

The chairman of distressed Chinese developer Agile Group Holdings has sold a property in Hong Kong at less than half the purchase price six years ago.

The 1,239 square foot (115 square metre), three-bedroom flat in Hamburg Villa at 8-10 Eastbourne Road in Kowloon Tong fetched HK$14.3 million ($1.83 million), compared with HK$31 million in 2018 when the city’s property market was still soaring, according to Centaline property agent Ronald Yue, who closed the deal. Read more>>

Singapore’s UOL Says H1 Profit Declined 3%

UOL Group reported a 3 percent year-on-year decline in net attributable profit to S$130.4 million ($99 million) for its half-year ended 30 June. The result was mainly due to attributable fair value losses of S$12.2 million compared with fair value and other gains of S$3.3 million for the same period last year.

Pre-tax profit before fair value and other losses and gains totalled S$245.3 million, up 7 percent year-on-year, owing to higher earnings from property investments, hotel operations and dividend income. Read more>>

Equinix Sets Out $124M Investment Plan for Hong Kong Data Centre

US giant Equinix on Tuesday announced an initial investment of $124 million for its purpose-built International Business Exchange data centre in Hong Kong.

Named HK6, this new facility will be interconnected to Equinix’s five existing data centres, which serve as a hub for data and economic exchange between multinational enterprises, local and mainland Chinese companies in the Greater Bay Area. Read more>>

PAG Buyout of Wanda Mall Platform Falls Behind Schedule

An $8.3 billion capital injection deal that Dalian Wanda Group signed with an investor group led by private equity firm PAG in March is moving forward but at a slower pace than anticipated, an informed source said after a further asset sale by the embattled Chinese developer sparked concerns over the agreement’s fate.

“The strategic investment is progressing normally, just slightly later than expected,” the person familiar with the matter told Yicai. Read more>>

Hong Kong’s Hysan Secures $1B Syndicated Loan

Hysan Development, the largest landlord in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, secured an HK$8 billion ($1 billion) four-year syndicated loan, which will be used to meet refinancing and operational needs over the “medium term”.

The consortium consists of 20 international and local banks, including Bank of China, DBS Bank and HSBC. The developer manages 2.4 million gross square feet (222,967 square metres) of premium office space in Causeway Bay, including Hysan Place, Lee Garden One, Lee Garden Two, Lee Garden Three and Lee Garden Five, as well as retail and residential properties. Read more>>

China’s Beike Announces Q2 Profit Jump Despite Housing Slump

KE Holdings, the operator of one of China’s largest real estate brokerage networks, posted a surprise increase in second-quarter profit as its Beike chain of sales agents handled more rental property, home sales and non-housing transactions.

Adjusted net profit rose 13.9 percent to RMB 2.7 billion ($377 million) in the second quarter, beating the RMB 1.8 billion expected by analysts in a Bloomberg poll. Sales jumped 20 percent to a record RMB 23.4 billion, beating analysts’ expectations by 9 percent. Read more>>

Ong Beng Seng’s Hotel Properties Ltd Trims H1 Loss to $3.7M

Hotel Properties Ltd, the real estate player owned by tycoon Ong Beng Seng, on Tuesday reported a net loss of S$4.9 million ($3.7 million) for the half year ended 30 June, narrowing from a loss of S$17.2 million in the corresponding year-ago period.

The result comes as the group’s revenue increased 8.9 percent year-on-year to S$347.3 million on better performance by a majority of the group’s hotels and resorts and the opening of Six Senses Kanuhura Maldives, which had undergone a major refurbishment. Read more>>

SGX-Listed Prime US REIT Declares 92% Drop in Distributions

Prime US REIT’s manager on Tuesday said the trust’s distribution per unit tumbled 92 percent year-on-year to $0.0018 for the six months ended 30 June.

The manager noted that the amount to be distributed to unitholders for the six months is about 10 percent of the distributable income for the period. The manager said this was to “balance our objectives to preserve a substantial proportion of distributable income to meet Prime US REIT’s capital expenditure needs and reinvest cash flows in the business.” Read more>>

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