CBRE chairman shrugs off speculation of Wanda's mooted exit from Australia

CBRE chairman shrugs off speculation of Wanda's mooted exit from Australia
Staff ReporterDecember 7, 2020

The South China Morning Post has reported the Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, once a serial acquirer of overseas assets, has offered all five of its large-scale projects in Britain, the US and Australia to a single buyer for an estimated $6.6 billion (US$5 billion), as Beijing tightens control over companies’ offshore investments.

It reported potential investors have been approached by representatives of Wanda looking to sell all five projects in one go, according to two people familiar with the matter, who did not wish to be identified.

“They are looking for one buyer who can snap up five development projects in five cities,” one of the sources told the newspaper.

“That will be a big investment. But basically they intend not to sell the assets at below cost, which is about US$5 billion.”
 
Both Wanda’s Australian assets – the US$1 billion Circular Quay apartment and hotel tower and the US$900 million Jewel project on the Gold Coast - appear on the reputed sell-off list.
 
The UK project up for grabs is One Nine Elms, a two-tower residential and hotel development currently under construction in London. The US$1 billion development was acquired by Wanda from UK-based Green Property in 2013.
 
In the US, Wanda plans to sell its Vista Tower, which will be Chicago’s third-tallest building when it is completed in 2020, and a US$1.2 billion luxury condominium and hotel complex near the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards in Beverly Hills, California.

Sydney CBRE's chairman of residential marketing Justin Brown indicated no knowledge saying Wanda's Circular Quay project was progressing through a "strong" expression of interest campaign with apartment buyers.

Launched last month, no big sales have yet been announced by CBRE. And nothing forthcoming from BlackDiamondz which this month claimed, without specification, in an AFR piece to have been assisting Wanda through BlackDiamondz's new publicity and marketing division.

"We haven't been advised that the project won't progress to a launch," Brown told Fairfax Media.

The Australian report that the two Australian assets had also been offered around as a pair, but without success as interest was only in the Sydney project.

The sales at the Gold Coast project had been "sluggish," The Australian reported.

 

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