The mysterious buyer of the $217M office building in Sheung Wan, Lucas Lo
The mysterious buyer of the $217 million Bonham Circus building in Sheung Wan — a deal which Mingtiandi covered earlier this week — has now been revealed. Macau businessman Lucas Lo, chairman of Similan Group, along with other investors, is reported to have bought the Hong Kong office asset from funds managed by local real estate investment firm Pamfleet. The buyer was identified by local newspaper Sing Tao Daily.
Adding Hong Kong to a Mainland and Macau Portfolio
The newly traded Bonham Circus is home to a 16-floor co-working centre operated by naked Hub. Pamfleet leased the space to the Shanghai-based firm last July, marking the flexible office brand’s first location in Hong Kong. Private equity player Pamfleet purchased the 29-storey building, formerly known as EIB Centre, in August 2016 for HK$100 million ($12.8 million).
Located just one metro stop west of the city’s Central business nexus, the tower at 40 Bonham Strand has a gross floor area of 88,000 square feet (8,175 square metres).
Lo invests in mainland real estate with a focus on Zhuhai, a southern city bordering Macau in Guangdong. He owns two hotels and a shopping centre in the city, along with a shopping mall called “Macau Square” in the central Chinese city of Xi’an.
Macau Investor Goes for the Stiletto Look in Hong Kong
naked Hub flaunts its presence in Bonham Circus
The office building acquisition adds another highly vertical asset to Similan Group’s portfolio in Hong Kong, which was formerly dominated by the “Ginza-style” commercial buildings Zing! and The L Square in Causeway Bay and The L Place in Central. These pencil buildings mimic the vertical retail format popularised in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district, where space constraints have given rise to malls that stretch skyward rather than sideways.
The Macao-based group acquired Zing! from CLSA Capital Partners for a reported HK$1.9 billion ($243 million) last November. Located adjacent to Wharf’s Times Square complex, the 27-storey shopping and lifestyle tower with a floor area of 79,051 square feet (7,344 square metre) is said to be fully leased out to retail tenants.
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