Singapore’s Mapletree Said To Be Buying Goldin Financial Global Centre
HONG KONG – Different market reports have stated that a joint venture (JV) comprising Singapore’s Mapletree Investments and private equity company PAG has entered into a deal with liquidators to acquire Hong Kong’s Goldin Financial Global Centre (GFGC) for roughly HK$5.6 billion (US$720.1 million), reported Mingtiandi on Sunday evening (18 December, SGT).
While the buyers have yet to confirm the story, real estate agencies told the news outlet that the parties have already paid the stamp duty for the transaction, and the deal is presently being logged by Hong Kong’s Land Registry.
This follows a series of failed tenders and cancelled sales of the 28-storey Grade A office building along 17 Kai Cheung Road in Kowloon Bay.
The most recent bungled deal was when the liquidators scrapped a September transaction to dispose the 852,501 sq ft office building for HK$6.7 billion after the would-be buyer, HG Real Estate Investment Hong Kong, failed to close the acquisition. The potential buyer also filed a lawsuit in November, contending that the sale and purchase agreement (SPA) had been axed without a valid cause.
The latest deal would value the Goldin Financial Global Centre at about HK$5.6 billion (about HK$6,568 psf), which is almost 17 percent less than the failed HK$6.7 billion transaction in September.
The latest amount is also 18 percent less than the HK$6.8 billion loan, which was backed by the Grade A office building. Notably, the commercial property was seized by receivers in July 2020 after Chinese developer Goldin Financial Holdings failed to pay the debt.
In an initial tender in September 2020, the receivers had valued the LEED Platinum-certified office building at HK$12 billion.
Should Singapore’s Mapletree and PAG complete the acquisition, it would mark the 2nd time that they would take part in a transaction involving an office property in Kowloon East, following PAG’s almost HK$9 billion acquisition of what was then known as Mapletree Bay Point in 2019.
The asset was built by Mapletree and stands on a 2.2km land plot southeast of the Goldin Financial Global Centre. When Canadian insurer Manulife agreed to lease 145,000 sq ft of office space there a year ago, the building was rebranded as Manulife Place.
