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Sale of big office buildings on offer
Market for leasing office buildings in HCM City has already witnessed some transferal transactions in recent years and this trend is increasing, especially in this current circumstance when a number of projects have been under negotiation and will officially be transferred with the owners in the time to come.
In reality, the sale, purchase, and acquisition on real estate projects are normal business activities when investors reach the expectations of profits. However, it is noted that the economic crisis situation in the recent time has resulted in a financial difficulty for some investors; therefore, to handle the way out, they need to transfer their projects.
Hidden wave
The most notable point is the deal of transferring the Central Point office building project located on Nguyen Van Troi road, Phu Nhuan district, HCM City. It took at least one year for Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam Company Ltd. to arrange the stock transferal deal from the project investor Refico to a Japanese real estate investment fund.
However, the fund has just decided to ask the Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam Company Ltd. to be broker to find a partner for the project transferal just nearly seven months after completely purchasing the office building.
Mr. David Lyons, Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam’s general director said the fund wanted to transfer the project because it had an intention of closing the fund by the first quarter of 2013, so it will refund all capital at all its investment portfolio.
The problem is that whether this investment fund can find another potential investor for its project transferal or not, especially in the current situation that the leasing office market has experienced a stagnation, especially under pressure of leasing price reduction as well as finding leasing Clients.
Mr. Lyons added that the transferal of the project was the investment strategy of the fund and in the moment, the Central Point had a current occupancy rate of nearly 100 per cent, much higher than the previous stages. Together with effective management, expense reduction and increasing revenue at present, the fund will gain profits when transferring the project.
According to Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam, the Company is working with three investors, one from Japan and the other two from Singapore with regard to the project transferal.
In another deal, the Royal Tower trade centre and office building project located on Nguyen Luong Bang Street belonging to the Phu My Hung urban complex area is planning to find another investor to be involved so as to finalize the project construction via the brokerage of Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam.
At present, the 21 storey building with the total floor areas of around 41,000 square meters, including 17 leasing office floors and four retail floors have finalized around 80 per cent of construction workload, and is poised to complete by next June.
According to Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam, the project investor is a domestic investor that is intending to find a real investor who has a potential financial capability as well as experience in terms of office building management, for a cooperation based upon the share contribution basis.
The investment mode on ready to use projects is a choice of foreign investors that haven’t had office in Vietnam and lack experience in management of contractors in Vietnam. Instead of wasting costs for setting up the office, the investors in this way only need to spend money for investment, then they will own office to run so as to minimize possible risks.
According to Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam, at present there are three foreign investors exposing interests in this project.
Market observers attributed the sale of projects from owners to a lack of experience in developing the projects and pressure from repayment of bank loans.
The Lam Son Square retail and commercial centre project in Vung Tau province has been given to Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam for finding partners for transferal of the entire project under construction.
The 8 storey complex project owned by a domestic company and an overseas Vietnamese has been built at the 2nd floor, and it is expected to find an investor for transferal at the price of US$10 million more or less.
In the recent announcement, the VinGroup said that it would transfer entire tower B-the office bloc at the Vincom Centre Hanoi building located on Ba Trieu Street, Hai Ba Trung district to Techcombank. Previously, the VinGroup has already transferred the tower A to the Bank for Investment and Development in Vietnam (BIDV).
Mr. Lyons said that under the downturn market, there always appeared investors to sell the project or otherwise find partners for join venture. Besides, there would raise potential investors to find investment opportunities.
vietnamnet
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