Agora to hold new public auction

The owner of Agora Garden (亞太會館) hotel is organizing a new auction of the property in Taipei's upscale Xinyi District, with a higher floor price, the hotel's real-estate consultant, DTZ (戴德梁行), said yesterday.

"The hotel's owner, Mr Shen [Ching-ching], found the offers made by foreign equity funds unacceptable and has decided to reopen the auction," DTZ general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Shen Ching-ching (沈慶京) is also the chairman of the Core Pacific Group (威京集團).

Agora had originally scheduled an open auction for yesterday, but scrapped the idea on March 7 in favor of direct, closed-door negotiations when several private equity funds and foreign investors said they were barred from joining public bids.

Yen said that the schedule for the new auction and the floor price will be made public on Wednesday.

The new floor price could jump to more than NT$10 billion (US$329 million), from the original NT$6.9 billion, the auctioneer said, adding that Shen would finalize the price after monitoring the local property market's post-election performance during the weekend.

Yen reiterated his confidence in the deal, saying: "Forget about the old floor price."

The deal has attracted more than 100 bidders, including international equity funds and domestic investors such as Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), a subsidiary of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控).

Yen said yesterday that foreign investors may still join the public auction if they team up with a local partner.

With prices in the area selling for NT$1.4 million to NT$1.6 million per ping (3.3m2), DTZ said it was optimistic that planned luxury home projects at the Agora site could hit NT$2 million to NT$2.5 million per ping, or higher, in the coming years.

In that case, the projects could generate a profit of at least 20 percent, even if the property costs NT$4 million per ping, DTZ said in a pre-auction meeting two weeks ago.