Mirae Asset Group founder and chairman Park Hyeon-joo
South Korea’s postal service picks Mirae Asset to manage a core real estate fund, with that story leading today’s headline roundup. Also making the list, bankrupt builder China Evergrande’s chairman resists disclosing his assets and Singapore-listed Far East Hospitality Trust reports falling property income.
Korea Post Chooses Mirae to Manage $417M Property Mandate
Mirae Asset Global Investments is set to manage the mandate of more than KRW 600 billion ($416.8 million) in core real estate fund investment by Korea Post, investment banking industry sources said Tuesday.
Korea Post on Monday picked Mirae Asset as a preferred bidder to manage the fund, according to the sources. The national postal service is poised to name the asset manager as the fund’s operator after due diligence and investment council meetings. Read more>>
Evergrande Liquidators Says Defaulted Builder’s Chair Refuses to Disclose Assets
China Evergrande chairman Xu Jiayin plans to refuse disclosing details of his assets, the group’s liquidators said, likely complicating efforts to wind up the defaulted builder to pay back creditors.
Xu expressed his intention in a 23 April response to the court, a lawyer representing the liquidators said in a Tuesday hearing at the Hong Kong High Court. Xu’s lawyer, who was at the hearing, did not push back on the liquidator’s statement. Read more>>
SGX-Listed Far East Hospitality Trust Sees Property Income Drop 8.3%
Far East Hospitality Trust’s net property income fell 8.3 percent year-on-year to S$23 million ($17.6 million) for the first quarter ended March.
Gross revenue fell 6.8 percent to S$25.2 million. The drop was mainly due to lower master lease revenue from the hotel and serviced residence segments, arising from the absence of major events compared with the same period last year, the REIT’s managers said Wednesday. Read more>>
Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui Ranked as World’s Priciest Shopping Street
Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui district commanded the most expensive rental fees among the world’s retail markets last year, as luxury brands from Cartier and Dior to Tiffany kept their flagship stores running on the Kowloon peninsula, according to Savills.
Prime retail rent in TST, as the area is called, was £17,132 ($22,976) per square metre per year in the fourth quarter, Savills said in a report. That figure was 9.6 percent higher than New York’s Madison Avenue (£15,559) and 11 percent greater than Bond Street in London’s West End (£15,333). Read more>>
Hong Kong Overhang of Unsold Homes Hit Record High in Q1
The number of unsold first-hand private residential units in Hong Kong’s completed projects rose to a record high last quarter as developers struggled to clear inventory at reduced prices and a global tariff war heightened economic uncertainty.
There were 28,000 unsold units as of 31 March, an increase of 1,000 from the preceding quarter, according to data published by the Housing Bureau on Tuesday. The trend prompted the city’s homebuilders to rein in new launches for the past four quarters, it said. Read more>>
Australian Self-Storage Buyout Effort Set to Become More Expensive
A consortium led by South African billionaire Nathan Kirsh may need to increase its A$1.9 billion ($1.2 billion) takeover offer for Abacus Storage King after a rival operator bought a small stake in the self-storage player, potentially blocking the proposed buyout, according to analysts.
The surprise move this week from National Storage REIT — known by its ticker NSR — gives it a beachhead of near 4.8 percent in the register of its listed rival. But, as analysts were quick to note, a takeover transaction could be blocked with a stake of just 10 percent, or even less. Read more>>
UOL Family Business Notches First Sales at 21 Anderson Road Project in Singapore
Kheng Leong, the private real estate arm of the family of Wee Cho Yaw, has begun selling its ultra-luxury 21 Anderson project in Singapore’s Tanglin area.
Out of the condominium’s 18 units, two 4,489 square foot (417 square metre) four-bedroom units were sold in April, according to URA Realis data. One was sold for S$21 million ($16 million) or S$4,672 per square foot on 10 April, while another was sold for S$23 million or S$5,127 per square foot on 15 April. The two units were sold to a Singaporean and a permanent resident. Read more>>
India’s CtrlS Breaks Ground on Bhopal Data Centre
India’s CtrlS has broken ground on a data centre in Bhopal. The facility will be located on a 5 acre (2 hectare) land parcel at the Badwai IT Park.
CtrlS said that the facility would possess “24/7 operational reliability and high uptime,” but specific figures were not provided. Further details about capacity and potential timelines were also unavailable. Read more>>
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