  
AS REPORTED IN THE WEST:
AS REPORTED IN ASIA:
Kuok & fellow Palm Oil billionaire own Aviva's
London HQ
"The buyers, Kuok Khoon Hong and Martua Sitorus, are founders of the
world's largest palm oil processor, Wilmar. "
 |
REAL
ESTATE RECOVERY STRATEGY
The building occupied by
Aviva generates a net annual rental income equivalent to 5.42% of
the purchase price |
Kuok Khoon Hong and Martua Sitorus, the
billionaire founders of the world's largest palm oil processor, bought
Aviva Plc's headquarters building in London for £288 million (S$580.8
million).
The purchase is a private investment
and separate from Singapore-based Wilmar International Ltd, the US$27.5
billion agricultural business Mr Kuok and Mr Sitorus founded 20 years ago,
Elaine Lim, managing director at Wilmar's external public relations firm,
Citigate Dewe Rogerson, said by e-mail.
The property occupied by Britain's
second-largest insurer is the last office tower out of nine in the City of
London financial district formerly owned by Simon Halabi.
CB Richard Ellis Group Inc, acting as
the special servicer of the debt secured against the properties, announced
the sale yesterday without identifying the purchaser.
The pound's weakness has attracted
international investors to prime real estate in central London, where a
shortage of new developments is lifting office rents.
Malaysia's Employees'
Provident Fund
is also
A Player on London's
Property scene
Chinese tourists poised to splurge in UK
Chinese tourists are expected to spend £260
million (S$525.4 million) on luxury products in visits to the UK in 2011, up
30 per cent from a year earlier, said Bruce Dundas, president of retail
adviser London Luxury.
'China
is a hugely emerging market in terms of travelling,' Mr Dundas said in an
interview yesterday in Shanghai. 'We have an enormous increase of visitors
over the last two to three years and an enormous increase in spend.'
London Luxury offers advice on Chinese
consumers to about 300 luxury-goods retailers in the city's West End
district, including Burberry Group plc, the UK's largest luxury retailer,
and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the world's largest maker of
luxury goods, he said.
It also provides services such as
heritage tours to high-end tourists visiting the city. Chinese shoppers
spend an average of £600 per transaction in the UK, he said.
Customers from the Greater China
region, which includes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, will account for 44
per cent of global luxury-goods sales by 2020, up from 15 per cent now,
CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets forecast in January.
-- 2011 May 25
BLOOMBERG
Asian investors - specifically investors
from Hong Kong and Singapore, both of which are experiencing rapidly
expanding economies -have snapped up £120 million, or $194 million in US
dollars, in London real estate. Most purchases range between £400,000 and £1
million.
Hong Kong investors accounted for 24
percent of all purchases of newly-built properties in London, giving it a
larger market share than any other Asian country. Singapore takes second
place in the market with 12 percent of new home purchases, and mainland
China falls third with 10 percent of the market.
While Hong Kong’s 70-percent increase in
housing prices since 2009 is a staggering example of the growth of Asian
markets, Singapore and mainland China are also high-growth areas. Singapore
housing prices have reached record highs, and based on the first three
months, the island’s economy is expected to grow 23.5 percent this year. On
mainland China, home prices rose 28 percent in Beijing and 26 percent in
Shanghai last year, according to SouFun Holdings Ltd., the company behind
China’s largest real-estate website.
>>
MORE
ASIA
REPORT
-- 2011 June 15 PROPERTY
POST
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