Goldin Financial Global Centre Finally Sold, Says Savills
HONG KONG – The Goldin Financial Global Centre in Kowloon East has changed hands, announced Savills, which has been appointed to manage the tender for the 28-storey office tower by creditors, reported Mingtiandi on Wednesday evening (21 September, SGT).
While the property consultancy didn’t name the buyer or announce the price, local media said the selling price ranges from HK$6.8 billion to HK$7.0 billion. This works out to at least HK$7,977 psf based on the commercial property’s area of 852,501 sq ft.
While some market watchers deem the HK$6.8 billion price as optimistic, it represents a 44 percent discount to the HK$12 billion minimum set in an initial tender that started in September 2020 after the asset was seized by receivers in July of the same year.
Goldin Financial had valued the Grade A office property then used as the developer’s headquarters at HK$18.3 billion. It was completed in 2016 and is Leed Platinum rated.
At the reported selling price, the disposal should be able to repay holders of HK$6.8 billion in senior notes issued by Goldin in April 2019.
After a series of record-setting land acquisitions in Hong Kong, Goldin defaulted on the notes, which were collateralized by the Goldin Financial Global Centre, and receivers were hired to liquidate the commercial property.
In late-2020, Goldin announced that a businessman named “Fong Tim” had signed a deal to buy the office tower and this stalled the tenders of the creditors. Goldin’s move was viewed by some market watchers as an attempt to block the tender of Goldin Financial Global Centre by its receivers. But when that sale failed to push through, and after a lengthy legal battle was declared void, the purported acquirer had to forfeit a HK$2.03 billion deposit.
A new tender for the office property was initiated in May 2022, with local press earlier this month naming local development giant Nan Fung as the buyer. However, Savills has denied naming Nan Fung as the buyer and refused to provide further details on the disposal.
At HK$6.8 billion selling price, the divestment of the Goldin Financial Global Centre would represent the biggest single asset deal in Hong Kong’s property market so far this year, as an economic slowdown in China and rising interest rates have impacted the world’s most expensive commercial property market.
Notably, the office building was 30 percent vacant as of May 2022, as the Goldin Financial Global Centre struggled as a high-specification asset in a secondary location within the emerging Kowloon East commercial hub during a time when office tenants have been slashing their office space footprint and investors staying on the sidelines.
