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Mapletree starts work on south China project

Posted on 19 Nov 2009 | Comments Off

Mapletree Investments yesterday unveiled plans for the US$342 million first phase of its Nanhai Business City, a mixed-use development in Foshan City, China.

Twenty high-rise apartment blocks with about 2,000 residential apartments and a four-storey retail mall called VivoCity@Nanhai will be developed in phase one, Mapletree said.

Nanhai Business City is the group’s first commercial project in south China and its largest project so far.

The project is being developed by a Mapletree- sponsored private real estate fund called Mapletree India China Fund, which holds 80 per cent of a joint venture company set up to develop the project. The remaining 20 per cent is held by local Chinese partner Pan Shun Ming, who is chairman of Southern Packaging.

Nanhai Business City is the Mapletree fund’s third investment in China.

Mapletree celebrated the ground-breaking ceremony for phase one yesterday. This phase, expected to be completed by 2013, involves the development of 10 hectares of land into the high-rise residential blocks and retail mall.

The residential component will also have facilities such as a recreation centre, gymnasium, cafe, basketball court, indoor and outdoor swimming pools and themed gardens. The first batch of 270 units will be ready for sale in the third quarter of 2010.

VivoCity@Nanhai, the four-storey retail mall, will have about 100,000 sq metres of gross floor area. Mapletree said the mall will incorporate the ’successful attributes’ of its VivoCity shopping mall in Singapore.

The entire Nanhai Business City will cover more than 35 ha and will be developed in four phases over the next five to eight years.

‘Our investment in Nanhai Business City underscores the importance of South China as an investment location for Mapletree, particularly, the Nanhai district in Foshan City,’ said Mapletree chief executive Hiew Yoon Khong.

He said Mapletree is evaluating several other suitable investments in China and India for its US$1.16 billion Mapletree India China Fund, which was set up to fund the group’s expansion in these countries.

Source : Business Times – 19 Nov 2009

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Posted in Developers, Overseas Property

Tagged China Property, Mapletree, Mapletree Investments, Nanhai Business City

CapitaMalls Asia shares at $2.12 each

Posted on 18 Nov 2009 | Comments Off

PROPERTY giant CapitaLand is spinning off 30 per cent of its stake in CapitaMalls Asia (CMA) to raise about $2.4 billion, in one of the biggest listings staged here.

The initial public offering (IPO) of the huge Asian mall owner, developer and manager opens today.

Retail investors will be able to buy into the IPO with shares priced at $2.12 each. The offer closes at noon next Monday, with trading expected to start around next Wednesday.

The price – below the midpoint of an indicative range of $1.98 to $2.39 a share – translates to an implied price-to-book value of 1.55 times.

It is ‘rich enough to give CapitaLand a big windfall, but yet a fair price to investors’, said CapitaLand chief financial officer Olivier Lim.

CapitaLand could reap up to $883 million in pre-tax earnings after the offering, assuming its over-allotment is exercised in full. It may recommend a special dividend after the CMA listing, which still trails the SingTel float in 1993, which raised more than $4 billion.

The CMA listing involves 1.165 billion vendor shares being offered at $2.12 a piece. There are 106.65 million shares earmarked for the public – including 11.65 million reserved shares and the rest in placements.

CMA has a portfolio valued at $20.3 billion, with 86 retail properties spread from Singapore to 47 cities in China, Malaysia, Japan and India.

The bulk – 50 properties – is in China, including 18 under development.

CMA holds two retail real estate investment trusts (Reits) – CapitaMall Trust and CapitaRetail China Trust.

Mr Philip Lee of JPMorgan, the offering’s sole financial adviser, said institutional investors from the West are showing great interest.

‘It’s China and its consumerism,’ said Mr Lee, who is JPMorgan’s chief executive and head of investment banking in South-east Asia.

CapitaLand president and chief executive Liew Mun Leong, who also chairs CMA, stressed that the mall developer was not a Reit, but a growth company.

He said Asia’s retail scene was still very disorganised, with a lot of shopping done in wet markets, providing huge opportunity to mall developers.

In China, only 20 per cent of shopping is done in malls, while it is just 5 per cent in India, but 65 per cent in Singapore and 85 per cent in the United States, he added.

More than 50 per cent of CMA’s earnings before interest and tax comes from Singapore – where the firm has 17 properties, including a share of Ion Orchard.

‘But in three to four years’ time, China will contribute this amount or more,’ said CMA chief executive Lim Beng Chee.

The average valuation of the 32 completed malls in China is $201 per sq ft (psf), a fifth of the $1,052 psf price for the 16 completed malls in Singapore.

CMA has nine malls in India, a country that will continue to urbanise and grow. But Mr Liew said India was a slower market to develop because of the bureaucracy.

China is faster, he added.

DMG & Partners Securities investment analyst Brandon Lee said: ‘The potential of the China market is big, but CMA will be a mid- to long-term play over three to five years.’

CMA said its focus is on growth, so its dividend payout will be less than that for the two Reits that it holds, said Mr Lim.

‘We will be paying a token dividend because we will need a lot of capital to grow,’ he added.

If CMA’s over-allotment option is exercised in full, it would raise about $2.76 billion, giving it a market capitalisation of around $8.2 billion. CapitaLand’s stake in CMA would fall to about 66 per cent.

Separately, CapitaLand said it has injected $800 million from part of its rights issue proceeds into CMA.

CapitaLand shares closed down 10 cents yesterday at $4.13.

GREAT POTENTIAL

‘The potential of the China market is big, but CMA will be a mid-to long-term play over three to five years.’ – DMG & Partners Securities investment analyst Brandon Lee

Source : Straits Times – 18 Nov 2009