Vantage Closes on $1.6B Investment From GIC, ADIA and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

Data centres lead Mingtiandi’s look at news from around the region again today, as Vantage brings a close to one of the largest M&A deals in the sector this year. Also making the headlines, the company behind Facebook is said to be taking on an India data centre JV and Gaw Capital is finding it hard to get past a struggling Shanghai project. 

Vantage Closes on $1.6B Investment From GIC, ADIA

Vantage Data Centers has completed a $1.6 billion equity investment into its Asia Pacific platform led by Singapore sovereign fund GIC and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Part of the capital was allocated to close the acquisition of Yondr Group’s 300-megawatt hyperscale data centre campus at Sedenak Tech Park in Johor, Malaysia.

The transaction, initially announced in September, expands Vantage’s regional platform to 1 gigawatts of operational and planned IT capacity across Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The addition of the Johor campus marks Vantage’s third campus in Malaysia. Read more>>

Meta Said Partnering With India’s Sify for 500MW Data Centre

Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is likely to partner with Sify Technologies in setting up a 500-megawatt data centre in India’s Andhra Pradesh, said a person familiar with the matter.

Sify is expected to invest INR 152.7 billion ($1.7 billion) to build the hyperscale data centre in Paradesipalem village, about 25 kilometres (15.5 miles) from Visakhapatnam city on the Kolkata-Srikakulam highway. This capacity will be leased to Meta. Meta will also land its subsea cable project called Waterworth at Sify’s landing station in the area. Read more>>

Gaw Still Struggling to Refinance $110M Loan on Shanghai Project 

Hong Kong-based private equity firm Gaw Capital Partners is rushing to extend a property-backed loan due Monday after a weekend of down-to-the-wire talks, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest case spotlighting broader strains in China’s property market.

Pressure has been mounting on the firm to extend the $110 million borrowing after it missed a payment just over a week ago on a separate facility. Read more>>

CapitaLand Investment to Take on Repositioning of Johor Shopping Centre

CapitaLand Investment has been appointed by Coronade Properties to collaborate on the repositioning of Coronation Square Mall as a key component of Coronation Square, an integrated development in the Ibrahim International Business District within the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone. It will be directly connected to the upcoming Rapid Transit System link, offering accessibility between Singapore and Johor Bahru.

The announcement follows the recent appointment of The Ascott Ltd, the lodging unit of Temasek-backed CapitaLand Investment, to manage Ascott Coronation Square Johor Bahru, the development’s hotel component. Read more>>

Japan’s Nishitetsu to Take On Mumbai Commercial JV

Japanese conglomerate Nishi-Nippon Railroad Co Ltd (Nishitetsu) is set to enter India’s real estate market through a partnership with Mumbai-based developer Runwal Enterprises.

The proposed alliance will see the two companies jointly develop a commercial project with a gross development value of INR 20 billion ($220 million) at Kurla, near the city’s Bandra-Kurla Complex business district. Read more>>

UBS China Optimist Switches Forecast to Prolonged Slump

John Lam, UBS Group’s head of China property research and a longtime contrarian, is retreating from his earlier bullish calls and joining his Wall Street peers in predicting that the country’s four-year real estate downturn is far from over.

Lam said in an interview that he expects home prices to fall for at least another two years before a recovery in China’s beleaguered residential property market can take hold. One reason is that potential buyers are increasingly opting to rent properties while prices are declining, he noted in a report earlier this month. Read more>>

Far East Orchard to Focus on Hospitality, Student Housing

Singapore’s Far East Orchard is targeting to reach assets under management of S$3 billion ($2.3 billion) in core assets by 2050, up from S$2 billion in 2025. The group is also aiming to reach 25,000 rooms and 85,000 beds in five years’ time, up from its current 17,500 rooms and 55,000 beds as of this month.

In its Monday announcement, the group said it would focus on its hospitality, purpose-built student accommodation portfolio and funds as growth drivers. Read more>>

Why China’s Property Market Slump Is Set to Continue

Once one of the country’s biggest growth drivers, China’s property market has been in a downward spiral for four years with no signs of abating. Real estate values continue to plummet, households in financial distress are being forced to sell properties, and apartment developers that racked up enormous debt on speculative projects are on the brink of collapse.

There was some optimism that government measures to end the crisis had been working to reinvigorate the market, but in March, government-linked developer China Vanke reported a record RMB 49.5 billion ($6.8 billion) annual loss for 2024, showing just how deep the problems run. Read more>>

Tune in again soon for more real estate news and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on X, or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.