China Vanke Opens 2018 with RMB 68B in Sales to Notch Biggest Month Ever

From the GLP buyout to the acquisition of CapitaLand’s malls, China Vanke has been stealing the spotlight in the past few months. The Shenzhen-based developer has now grabbed headlines again by announcing RMB 67.98 billion ($10.8 billion) of sales for January, its highest single monthly sales volume.

Vanke’s contracted sales for the month rose 41.3 percent year-on-year from last year’s RMB 48.12 billion ($7.6 billion), according to its filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The developer’s improvement over the first month of 2017 may result in part from China’s spring festival holiday — traditionally a low point for sales — falling in January last year, and in mid-February for 2018.

Top Developers All Break RMB 60B in Sales

January marks the third time the property developer has achieved sales volume of over RMB 60 billion ($9.5 billion), following last March’s RMB 63.64 billion ($10 billion) and December’s RMB 62.23 billion ($9.9 billion).

In terms of floor space, China’s 2017 third-largest developer by sales moved 4.4 million square metres (47 million square feet) worth of flats in the first month of the new year.

Vanke’s rivals Country Garden and Evergrande have yet to announce their respective sales in January, although real estate information provider China Index Academy calculates that Vanke’s two counterparts have each achieved more than RMB 60 billion sales in the period.

Acquisitions Help Build Pipeline

Vanke also revealed it had acquired 14 new projects in January in 12 cities including sites in Foshan and Dongguan in southern China’s Guangdong province and in the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan. The newly acquired projects have a gross floor area of 11.6 million square metres (125 million square feet).

Those residential project acquisitions come after Vanke played a leading role in a consortium that completed its $11.6 billion buy out of Asia’s largest warehouse developer, Global Logistic Properties (GLP) at the end of November.

In January, the builder further raised its profile in the commercial property market by purchasing a portfolio of 20 mainland shopping malls from Singapore’s CapitaLand for $1.3 billion.

The top three developer has recently changed its leadership, last week naming finance veteran Zhu Jiusheng as its president and chief executive officer, succeeding chairman Yu Liang in the roles. Yu will continue to serve as chairman.