Friday, September 21, 2007

S$2b Bid For Marina View Site Seen To Set Benchmark For Second Plot

Source : Channel NewsAsia, 20 September 2007

Market watchers say they expect equally aggressive or possibly stronger bids for the second land parcel at Marina View.

Their optimism comes after the first white site in the area fetched a top bid of S$2.02 billion.

Macquarie Global Property Advisers, a fund management firm partly owned by Australia's Macquarie Bank Group, put in the highest bid of S$2.02 billion, or more than S$1,400 per square foot, for the site.

With that strong bid, the 1.02-hectare white site - just behind One Shenton Way - looks poised to set a new record for the price of state land.

The result of the tender has yet to be announced, but analysts are now re-looking the numbers for the adjoining site.

They expect the slightly smaller Land Parcel B to garner bids that are equal to, if not higher than, that for the first site.

Colin Tan, Chesterton's head of research and consultancy, said: "I expect the current tender bid to be the benchmark and I suppose that to win, the bidder would have to bid somewhat higher, because it has set the benchmark for the market. How high? It will depend on how they see the potential of this site."

Market watchers say those who have placed bids for the first site may put their hats in the ring again. These include CapitaLand, Mapletree and Malaysia's IOI.

Donald Han, Cushman & Wakefield's managing director, said: "I think the bids were definitely very aggressive. We would probably expect all three to feature quite prominently in the next adjoining URA sales of sites."

Other potential bidders are said to include City Developments, Keppel Land, Hong Kong Land and Cheung Kong Holdings.

Analysts say one key reason for the aggressive bids for the Marina View area is that it is slated not just purely for office use, unlike the main Raffles Place area. There is going to be plenty of residential living space and land parcel B will set aside 25% of its space for hotel rooms.

All these will add to the buzz of activity once the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort is up and running. - CNA/ir

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