Two construction tycoons yesterday jointly won the bidding for a large piece of land in downtown Taipei, injecting a dose of confidence into the property market, which saw sluggish trading in the first half of the year.
Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), the nation’s second-largest insurer, sold the land near Da-an Forest Park to Lin Ming-hsiung (林敏雄), chairman of Yuan Lih Group (元利建設), and Tsai Tseng-yu (蔡鎮宇), board director of Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), for NT$4.8 billion (US$158 million), or 14.3 percent higher than the floor price of NT$4.2 billion.
Market analysts said the sale of the 1,180 ping (3,894m²) plot located in a residential neighborhood would benefit both parties and help boost the property marketa.
Billy Yen (顏炳立), general manager of DTZ Debenham Tie Leung International Property Advisers (戴德梁行), said he felt certain beforehand that the auction would run smoothly since the lot had been fairly priced.
Yen, whose company Shin Kong had consulted on the auction, said the deal had allowed the seller to increase liquidity as planned while leaving the buyers ample room for profit margins.
Shin Kong Life, a subsidiary of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), acquired the land in 2006 with a view to building upscale housing, but shifted its strategy this year in favor of commercial property that could generate rental profits, the company said in its auction announcement.
Lin and Tsai, whose businesses possess necessary capital and know-how, are expected to turn the plot into luxurious apartment units to be sold at between NT$1.3 million and NT$1.4 million per ping, Yen said. The plot sold for NT$4.07 million per ping, up from the NT$2.6 million per ping Shin Kong paid for it two years ago.
Lin also owns Hwatai Bank (華泰銀行) and Pxmart (全聯社), the nation’s biggest “hard discounter” chain. Tsai jointly purchased the land in his individual capacity but his company is tied to Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), Cathay Securities (國泰證券), Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) and other financial services providers.
Yen’s estimates would be 65 percent higher than the average price of NT$850,000 per ping in the district, but the property consultant portrayed the price as reasonable, saying it would give profit margins of between 20 percent and 30 percent.
“The auction showed that housing in a good location remains attractive,” Yen said. “Properties in suburban areas may not be as appealing, though.”
Evertrust Rehouse (永慶房屋), a leading real estate agency, said the auction had lifted morale on the property market, which saw trade of high-end housing down 16.5 percent in the second quarter of this year.
Evertrust manager Yeh Kuo-hua (葉國華) said the bearish sentiment in the market, caused by rising inflation and interest rates, could be reversed if sellers would avoid overpricing their properties.
Yeh said the market was not short of funds or buyers, but investors have turned cautious as they try to gauge the impact of improved cross-strait ties and surging fuel costs on the economy.
A wait-and-see attitude is not necessarily a bad strategy, the agent said.
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
RSS