Convicted VN Scammer Pleads to Keep Birkin Bags and More APAC Real Estate Headlines

“Take my offices and hotels, but spare me my Birkins!” may have been heard in a Vietnamese courtroom this week, but the country’s judiciary proved true to their task, separating convicted scammer Truong My Lan from her ill-gotten handbags, with that story leading our look at real estate news today. Also making the headlines, a pair of Singapore REITs report improved results for 2025.

Convicted Vietnamese Scammer Pleads With Court to Keep Birkin Bags

Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan pleaded with the court to let her keep two Hermes Birkin Himalaya handbags made of crocodile skin from the Nile River after she was convicted of embezzling more than $12 billion.

Though she expressed a willingness to part with prime real estate in Vietnam’s commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City to compensate for financial damages she caused, the purses were personal, Lan told judges during one of her trials, the Phap Luat Ho Chi Minh City news website reported. The court, however, ruled that the handbags were the result of illicit gains. Read more>>

Keppel DC REIT Reports 55% Jump in Distributable Income

Keppel DC REIT announced Friday that its distributable income for 2025 reached S$268 million ($211 million), up 55 percent from a year earlier, helped by acquisitions in Tokyo and Singapore.

The SGX-listed trust completed S$1.1 billion in acquisitions last year, including its third data centre in Tokyo, helping its gross revenue rise more than 50 percent to S$441.4 million for 2025. Read more>>

CapitaLand Ascott Trust Distributions Rise 0.8% in H2 2025

CapitaLand Ascott Trust on Thursday posted a marginal 0.8 percent rise in distribution per stapled security to S$0.0358 for the second half of 2025.

CLAS’s core DPS fell 4 percent on the year to S$0.0295. The drop was mainly due to property tax adjustments, the trust’s managers said Thursday. Excluding the adjustments, core DPS would have been “relatively stable”. Read more>>

Australia’s Rinehart, Shanghai Partner Dumping Queensland Ranches on Foreign Land Tax

Billionaire Gina Rinehart and a deep-pocketed Chinese investor have put a Queensland cattle property on the block, blaming the impact of a A$1 million ($700 million) annual foreign land tax bill for the move.

The planned exit by S Kidman & Co — a joint venture of Rinehart’s Hancock operation and China’s Shanghai CRED — will see the high-profile Rockybank aggregation near Roma sold off, along with two other related stations. Read more>>

Macquarie $7.5B Buyout Offer for Australia’s Qube Extended to 15 Feb

Australia’s Qube Holdings said Thursday that Macquarie Asset Management has provided notice to extend the exclusivity period for its proposed $7.5 buyout of the ASX-listed company until 15 February.

Macquarie Asset Management is said to have confirmed its continued interest in the acquisition of the port and rail operator, with the extension said to reflect additional time needed to finalise due

diligence, documentation and approvals. Read more>>

Tokyo Tatemono Revealed as Partner in $650M SC Zeus Osaka Data Centre

Japanese developer Tokyo Tatemono is jumping into the data centre business, partnering with Singapore’s SC Zeus Data Centers to build a JPY 100 billion ($652 million) facility in Osaka by 2028 as it targets soaring demand driven by the spread of artificial intelligence.

Tokyo Tatemono is teaming with SC Zeus, a subsidiary of SC Capital Partners specialising in data centre development and operation. SC Zeus will plan and design the data centre and its equipment, while Tokyo Tatemono will manage negotiations with domestic general contractors. Tenant firms will provide the servers. Read more>>

GuocoLand Net Profit Jumps 14% After Sale of Johor Bahru Hotel

SGX-listed developer GuocoLand on Thursday posted a net profit of S$85.4 million ($67.4 million) for the six months to the end of December, up 14 percent year-on-year.  

GuocoLand attributed the bottom-line growth to its share of profits from associates and joint ventures, increased income from its property investment business, gains from the disposal of Thistle Johor Bahru hotel in Malaysia and lower finance costs. Read more>>

Cloud Gaming Hosting Specialist Ubitus Developing Kyoto Data Centre

Cloud gaming specialist Ubitus announced Thursday that it has agreed to develop an AI data centre in Kyoto prefecture, with a goal of completing major elements of the construction next year. 

Occupying a 2.3 hectare (5.7 acre) site, the first phase of the Maizuru City project will focus on building the data centre and progressively deploying core facilities and operational capabilities. The development was announced just one month after Ubitus said it had received a JPY 17 billion ($110 million) investment grant from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Read more>>

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