Tag Archives: Frasers Centrepoint

Frasers Centrepoint bails out of Arsenal apartment deal

It’s likely to have forfeited its deposit of 10% of the £47m purchase price

FRASERS Centerpoint has pulled out of a £47 million (S$106 million) deal to buy 120 apartments at the site of English football club Arsenal’s old stadium, likely forfeiting its deposit.

Highbury Holdings – a unit of the holding company that owns Arsenal Football Club – has now sold the apartments plus some 25 others for £41.4 million to London & Stamford, an AIM-listed property group.

Reports in February said that Frasers, a unit of listed Fraser & Neave, had put down a 10 per cent non-refundable deposit for flats in the Highbury Square project but was unwilling to pay the rest in full upfront.

It instead proposed to pay the sum, reportedly £15 million, on a deferred schedule but the offer was blocked by one of the club’s banks.

Frasers yesterday said that it was ‘pleased’ the units had been sold. ‘The price achieved is a clear indication that the market has turned in London and that there is significant interest from investors in acquiring prime London property,’ a spokeswoman told BT. ‘Our decision not to complete enables us to focus on our existing property portfolio and our direct development projects in London.’ Continue reading

Credit Suisse says bid spread shows developers wary

SHARP differences in bid prices offered by developers in the latest Urban Redevelopment Authority tender for a residential-commercial site at Yio Chu Kang suggest that the Government’s recent measures to cool the housing market are starting to take effect, said financial services firm Credit Suisse.

The tender closed on Thursday, drawing a total of 12 bids – one short of the 13 bids for two previous sites on the Reserve List of the Government Land Sales programme.

Credit Suisse notes that other than Far East Organization, which submitted the top bid of $119.08 million or $376 per sq ft per plot ratio (psf/ppr), other developers were more subdued, putting in bids at $154-278 psf/ppr.

Far East’s bid was 35 per cent above the second highest bid of $278 psf/ppr put in by Centurion RE.

“Hence, we believe the Government’s measures to cool the residential market announced on Monday did have an impact: Developers are more wary and selective, given there would be more supply,” Credit Suisse said in a research note.

Other bidders include Frasers Centrepoint, Ho Bee, Sim Lian Land and Soilbuild.

Although Credit Suisse believes that developers will continued to bank land for mass market residential sites as the end demand remains strong, “potential Government supply may cap prices” as sites on the Confirmed List will be released in the first half of next year.

Source : Today Online – 19 Sep 2009