The commercial property market is braced for a bustling week this week with several office buildings in central Taipei set to be auctioned off after the government issued a series of mixed messages on property transactions.
The Ministry of Finance said last week that it would remove a special sales tax as well as its ban on the sale of state-owned plots of land in New Taipei City (新北市) in order to bolster national treasury coffers, but added that it would only do this if it does not fuel property speculation.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), on the other hand, voiced plans to raise hurdles for life insurers seeking to invest in property while also tightening land financing for banks.
Today, the asset management and securities unit of Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控) are scheduled to sell an 18-floor office building on Jianguo N Rd Sec 2 as well as office space in Ximending (西門町) and Neihu (內湖) districts through a public auction with a combined floor price of NT$5.08 billion (US$169.19 million), said bidding organizer DTZ, an international real estate consultancy.
Yuanta Asset Management Co (元大國際資產), owner of the office building on Jianguo N Rd, intends to realize its gains from the property it acquired from MassMutual Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽保險) three years ago, DTZ said.
The building has 4,729 ping (15,605m2) in floor space located on a 574 ping plot of land, translating into NT$6.09 million per ping as measured by land alone, DTZ general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) added.
Built in 1985, the 27-year-old building will soon be qualified to apply for urban regeneration funding which would bolster its value, Yen said, adding that it is now fully occupied with rental yields averaging at 2.16 percent.
Major domestic life insurance companies, including Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽), Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) and China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽), have all indicated plans in stock filings to join bids for the acquisition of property in Greater Taipei.
With property prices higher and sapping profitability, the FSC met with insurers on Tuesday for talks on raising the minimum rental yields on real estate investments from the current level of 1.875 percent to 2.215 percent.
The FSC is also considering raising minimum occupancy rates to 70 percent of office buildings acquired, from the present 60 percent.
In addition, the commission has asked banks to set aside more provision for land financing — from 0.75 percent last year to 0.8 percent this year.
On Thursday, MassMutual Mercuries Life is scheduled to divest partial floors in a 12-story office building on Xinyi Rd Sec 4 with an asking price of NT$5.88 billion, bidding arranger Savills Taiwan Ltd (第一太平戴維斯) said.
Space for sale totals 4,498.39 ping from the 2nd to the 7th floor, in addition to the existent parking space in the 14-year-old building’s four underground levels that is half-owned by Horizon Securities (宏遠證券), Savills Taiwan said.
Cash-strapped Prince Motor Group’s (太子汽車) landmark office building on Dun Hua S Rd is also to be auctioned off on Thursday, the second attempt at selling the foreclosed building, for NT$11.41 billion.
The building has 6,631.5 ping in floor space, which is NT$1.67 million per ping, foreclosure data showed. The price will go down if a buyer cannot be found.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy