SG’s First Sponsor Forms JV for A$200M Sydney Project and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

A Singaporean developer leads the way in Mingtiandi’s roundup of Asia real estate headlines today with the news that the group has formed a joint venture to develop a $136 million mixed-use redevelopment in Sydney.

In other news around the region, certain banks in a Chinese city have put the brakes on mortgage lending, while cash from special purpose bonds set up to support infrastructure investments have been diverted into real estate in mainland China.

Elsewhere, a GIC-backed developer is set to invest $210 million in offices in India over the next three years.

SG’s First Sponsor Strikes JV for A$200M Sydney Project

Singapore-listed developer First Sponsor Group has made its debut on the Australian property scene, striking a joint venture investment in the A$200 million ($136 million) mixed-use redevelopment of Sydney’s City Tattersalls Club.

The group will make an equity investment into the project alongside ICD Property and the City Tattersalls Club, the initial developer and owner of the property, and provide development expertise towards the project. Read more>>

Banks in Shenzhen Halt Mortgage Lending

Even as China loosens credit to bolster slowing economic growth, it is continuing to tighten control over the real estate sector.

Shenzhen branches of two of the “big four” state-owned commercial banks halted mortgage lending to homebuyers in mid-November. The booming northern city Shenzhen, with a population of more than 13 million, borders Hong Kong and is one of China’s most prominent financial and industrial centres. Read more>>

Cash from China’s Infrastructure Bonds Diverted into Real Estate

A high-profile initiative to fire up funding for Chinese infrastructure has fallen short of meeting regions’ needs and ended up diverting some cash into the real estate sector instead of the public projects it is intended to support, analysis by the Financial Times shows.

Beijing ordered a big increase in the issuance of so-called special-purpose bonds in late 2018, touting them as a way to fund specific projects including irrigation, transport and toll roads. This boost has helped the market to swell to $1.3 trillion in five years, government data show, pulling a sizeable chunk of local financing out of the shadows. Read more>>

China Home Price Growth to Hit 5-Year Low in 2020

China’s house prices are expected to grow just 3.1% next year, the lowest over a calendar year since 2015, a Reuters poll showed, with tightening policies continuing to cool the market even as some easing is expected to prevent a sharp slowing.

A further moderation in China’s frothy market would be music to the ears of Chinese leaders, who have been cracking down on speculative buying for nearly four years as prices soared in almost every city-tier while income growth lagged. Read more>>

Chinese Investors Choose Singapore over Hong Kong

Chinese investors inquiring about property investment in Singapore have hit record highs since the second quarter of 2019, and China’s most widely used internet marketplace for foreign property purchases thinks that the trend will “maintain itself” until at least the first half of 2020.

But a valuation expert says the increase in Chinese buyers snapping up property in Singapore will only have a minor impact on the local housing market. Read more>>

King Wai Buys Portuguese Digital Bank As Hong Kongers Look to Move Abroad

Conglomerate Hong Kong King Wai Group has acquired a digital bank based in Portugal, in a move motivated by Beijing’s push to forge closer business ties with Portuguese-speaking economies and the rising demand from Hongkongers seeking permanent residency in Europe amid escalating unrest in their home city.

The group secured the approval of the European Central Bank in early October to acquire over 80 percent of BNI Europa, which has assets and deposits of about €500 million($554 million) and operates in 13 European countries including Germany and the UK. Hong Kong King Wai did not disclose how much it paid. Read more>>

DLF to Invest INR 15B in Gurugram Office Space

Realty major DLF’s arm will invest around INR 15 billion ($210 million) in the next two years on construction of over three million square feet (278,709 square metres) of office space in Gurugram, Haryana to tap into growing demand for commercial properties from corporates and co-working players.

DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd (DCCDL), a joint venture between DLF and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, has initiated the development of its new mixed-use project ‘Downtown’ comprising 11 million square feet of leasing area. DLF has a 67 percent stake in the DCCDL, while GIC has the rest. 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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