|
China Property Press Digest 23 Feb 2009
IHG
shifts focus as visitor numbers sag (China Daily, February 23) InterContinental Hotel Group is shifting its
China business focus from expansion to repositioning its
Holiday Inn as a middle-scale option. IHG aggressively
enlarged its network in China over the past three years,
especially around the Olympics, cashing in on a ballooning
economy and becoming the country's largest hotel group, with
112 operating hotels and around 100 more under construction.
But the UK-based hotel giant is adjusting its business
strategy as China's tourism industry slackens amid the global
economic downturn. Ping
An Trust targets quality properties (SCMP, February 22) Ping An Trust, the property investment arm of
the nation's second-largest insurer, will look for investment
opportunities despite the weakened real estate industry. The
company, which was hived off from the insurance group in 2002,
is looking for investments ranging from hotels to office
buildings and other commercial properties. Property
sellers find buyers hard to come by as price gap proves hurdle
(SCMP, February 22) Sharp differences are emerging between buyers
and sellers over the outlook for property in Hong Kong and the
mainland, and the resulting big gap between their price
expectations has applied the brakes to deals. While many
bidders are on the prowl for bargains, vendors remain hopeful
of more stimulus measures to prop up the ailing property
market and a gradual rise in prices on the mainland appears to
support their wait-and-see strategy. Cheung
Kong focuses on property projects in 1st-tier cities (China
Knowledge, February 20) Cheung Kong (Holdings) plans to focus on
high-end property projects in first-tier mainland cities, such
as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The company started
selling 150 detached and semidetached houses in a luxury villa
project in Shunyi District, Beijing in the second half of last
year and expects to sell anther 250 units this year, which is
estimated to raise as much as RMB 2 billion. The average price
of the houses is set at RMB 20,000 to RMB 250,000 per square
meter. Mixed-use buildings in Guangzhou and Shanghai are
scheduled to be put on sale in 2010 or 2011. The total sales
revenue from Cheong Kong's projects in the three cities is
expected to reach RMB 50 billion. Starwood
Hotels & Resorts Announces Five New Projects in China (PR
Newswire Asia, February 20) Starwood Hotels & Resorts has announced
the addition of five new hotels to its growing portfolio. The
new signings include the first St. Regis resort in Sanya; the
first St. Regis hotel in Chengdu, Sichuan; the first Sheraton
hotels in Jiangyin and Dalian; and a second Sheraton resort in
Huizhou, Guangdong. In 2009, the company will open more than
10 high caliber, best-in-class hotels throughout China,
including Le Meridien Xiamen, The Westin Nanjing, Sheraton
Qingdao and Four Points by Sheraton Guangzhou. Property
investor seeks prime sites (Shanghai Daily, February 20) Real estate investment firm Pacific Star Group
plans to acquire more prime-located office and retail
properties in China after an industry downturn and a global
economic crisis have eroded property values. The
Singapore-based company, which currently manages a suite of
funds, said it will be particularly keen in first-tier cities
including Shanghai and Beijing.
Hotels
in tit-for-tat price cuts as occupancy rates plummet (Shanghai
Daily, February 20) World class hotels are launching head-to-head
campaigns to lure travellers to their almost half-empty rooms
as the global financial turmoil hammers the hospitality
industry. Accor SA is the latest to join the competition in
Shanghai by launching its largest-ever Asia Pacific sales
campaign. Europe's biggest hotel group is offering discounts
of as much as 75 percent at more than 300 hotels across the
region.Accor's promotion came 10 days after similar plans were
announced by InterContinental Hotels Group. The world's
largest hotel company in terms of room numbers announced price
cuts for three of its brands in China. McDonald's
eyes 500 stores in China in 3 years (China Daily, February 18) McDonald's is optimistic about business
prospects in China and plans to open about 500 stores in the
country in three years. McDonald's China operations have not
been affected by the fallout from the global financial crisis
which has hit consumer spending as it has taken steps to
retain customers. McDonald's will open 175 new stores in 2009
and add 10,000 staff to its payroll, up from 60,000 presently. Shimao
shifting focus from hotels to homes (SCMP, February 18) Shimao Property Holdings might slow down the
pace of construction of some luxury hotels in second- and
third-tier mainland cities to preserve funds for quick-return
property developments. With a target for contracted sales of
15 billion yuan this year, Shimao would make residential
developments a priority, as hotels unusually take three to
four years to generate income. Poly
Real Estate 08 Net Up 50% Despite China Downturn (WSJ,
February 17) Poly Real Estate Group¡¯s 2008 net profit
rose 50.4%, as its property sales rose despite a slump in
China's real estate market. The company reduced new
developments and expedited the closing process for unit sales
last year, helping it to weather the decline in property
prices and demand as the global crisis took hold. Poly Real
Estate's net profit for the 12 months ended Dec. 31 rose to
CNY2.24 billion from CNY1.49 billion in 2007. Revenue rose
91.2% to CNY15.52 billion from CNY8.12 billion a year earlier.
Shanghai¡¯s
industrial property fast losing shine (The Edge Daily,
February 20) Shanghai¡¯s industrial property is fast
losing its shine as the manufacturing sector bears the brunt
of weakened demand, renminbi appreciation and rising cost of
operations. With the average price of industrial properties
moving south, gross yields are expected to rise to around 10%
this year. HK,
Shanghai, S'pore prime office rents to fall significantly by
2010 (Channelnewsasia, February 19) Office rents across the region are forecast to
drop sharply over the coming two years. According to some
property consultants, those taking the hardest knock will be
cities in which financial services firms occupy a high
percentage of prime office space. Cities like Hong Kong,
Singapore and Shanghai could see prime office rentals falling
by as much as 50 per cent by the end of 2010. Local
used home buyers propel deals (Shanghai Daily, February 19) The first half of this month witnessed rather
strong buying sentiment for used apartments as robust demand
from end-users helped boost transactions across Shanghai.
Transaction volume of second-hand homes jumped 62 percent in
the first 15 days of this month from the same period a month
earlier, and more than 40 percent of all deals were done in
Zhabei, Putuo and Baoshan. Price cuts launched recently in new
residential projects in Daning area have helped reduce prices
for second-hand homes nearby by between 5 and 10 percent on
average from their peak levels.
Food
street's final order (Shanghai Daily, February 19) All snack shops on the east section of
Shanghai's Wujiang Road are to be shut by the end of this year
and replaced with skyscrapers. The famous snack street will
become home to up-market shopping malls. Between Shimen Yi
Road in the west and Qinghai Road in the east, the street is
part of a relocation program for the Dazhongli area, where HKR
International Ltd and Swire Properties Ltd will join to build
two tall commercial buildings and three hotels. Shanghai
mortgages drop 14pc amid slump (SCMP, February 18) Home loans in Shanghai fell 14 per cent last
year as the property slump and lending curbs by banks hit
activity in the housing market. Outstanding mortgage loans
amounted to 310.76 billion yuan last year, against 361.34
billion yuan in 2007. Rents
fall 15% as number of expats seeking homes drops (Shanghai
Daily, February 17) Rents for high-end apartments, including
serviced apartments, have fallen by as much as 15 percent in
some parts of Shanghai. Rents in Lujiazui, Xintiandi and
Jing'an, three traditional areas for high-end apartments, are
seeing cuts of between 10 percent and 15 percent compared to a
year earlier.
Land
auction to boost sluggish real estate in Xiamen (What¡¯s on
Xiamen, February 19) Xiamen plans to auction 33 vacant lands and
prosperities in its six districts. The 33 lands and
prosperities include a piece of office land with land area of
2.14 hectares and with potential floor area of 203,000 sq.m.
Two vacant blocks will be sites for hotels that will cover
land area and floor area of 12.56 hectares and 220,500 sq.m,
respectively. 30 blocks are for residential projects which
have the land area and potential floor area of 217.96 hectares
and 5.618 million sq.m, respectively. GD
real estate investment growth slumps (Shenzhen Daily, February
17) Real estate investment in Guangdong Province,
the biggest contributor to the nation¡¯s economy, rose 16.8
percent to 293.2 billion yuan last year. The growth rate
slumped from 36.2 percent in 2007. Investment in residential
housing rose 18.9 percent to 213 billion yuan, spending on
construction of affordable housing dropped 16.2 percent to 861
million yuan while investment in high-end residential units
declined 21.4 percent to 26 billion yuan. Sales of housing
dropped 22.4 percent to 48.2 million sq.m and the value of
transactions dropped 21.4 percent to 288 billion yuan. Average
prices per sq.m rose 1.3 percent to 5,970 yuan.
Qingdao
Four Seasons Hotel to open in 2012 (Qingdao Daily, February
19) The first Qingdao Four Seasons Hotel will open
during 2012 in the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center. The hotel
offers 225 standard and deluxe suite rooms, and 50 boutique
apartments with high-end canteen and high-tech conference
facilities. Qingdao Four Seasons Hotel is the second
international five-star hotel inside Qingdao Olympic Sailing
Center, along with Intercontinental Hotel. Greenland
Group expands land bank in Tianjin (China Knowledge, February
17) Greenland Group has won the bidding for nearly
700,000 sq.m of land in Ji County in Tianjin. The newly
acquired lot is designed to be a huge, mixed-use development
nearly one million sq.m in extent, to become a world-class
cultural park to house and showcase the arts and culture of
Northeast China.
¡¡ |