Looking to benefit from Taichung’s booming commercial property market, Mega Asset Management Corp (兆豐資產管理公司), a subsidiary of Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), yesterday won the bid for partial rights to the 13-story property in Taichung where Kuangsan Enterprise Group’s (廣三集團) Sogo Department Store is located, a Mega Financial executive said yesterday.
“We made the bid because we’re optimistic about the outlook for the city’s commercial real-estate market,” Mega Financial vice president Grace Lin (林瑞雲) said by telephone.
The property was used as collateral for a non-performing syndicated loan of NT$2.833 billion (US$88.1 million) granted by four domestic banks, leading creditors Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) said in separate exchange filings.
Lin declined to disclose its closing price on the sale of the collateralized non-performing loan, citing confidentiality.
She said the company’s asset-management arm would repackage the collateral for resale in the near future.
One day earlier, Shin Kong Life Insurance (新光人壽) had successfully liquidated a 1,258 ping (4,158.7m²) parcel of land in Taichung near the intersection of Ying-tsai and Ming-sheng roads for NT$1.41 billion, or NT$1.12 million per ping — a record-high land price in the district.
The auction had attracted nine bidders and was closed with a 61 percent premium on the asking price of NT$880 million, the life insurer said in a statement on Thursday.
Shin Kong said it planned to re-invest the deal’s proceeds of around NT$1 billion into other properties in Taipei, where it expects a boom in the property market.
In related news, a Kaohsiung-based land developer yesterday described the sale of the 42-story Asia-Pacific Financial Plaza (亞太財經廣場) to technology guru Yeh Kuo-yi (葉國一), co-founder of Inventec Corp (英業達), as a bargain.
“The office building, which stands next to the city’s 85-story landmark Tuntex Sky Tower (85大樓), has a great location,” Edward Huang (黃炯輝), chairman of Ba Ba Business (巴巴事業) in Kaohsiung, said by telephone.
If managed well, the office building’s monthly rental could immediately see a 30 percent increase to around NT$650 to NT$700 per ping, or an 8 percent return, from the current range of between NT$450 and NT$550 per ping, he added.
Local media yesterday reported Yeh has acquired the building, which has a total floor space of 15,000 ping, for NT$1.78 billion, or NT$118,667 per ping.
The closing price represented a 16 percent premium on the asking price of NT$1.54 billion.
Yeh has expressed interest in acquiring Tuntex Sky Tower next, the report added.
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