UK real-estate services provider Savills PLC yesterday introduced its new executives at its Taiwan office, which is to double its staff in the coming two years to help local property funds invest overseas.
“Taiwan remains a key market for Savills in the region, although it fared weakly in the last few years,” Savills Asia-Pacific executive chairman Robert McKellar told a news conference to mark its 10-year presence in Taipei.
The British firm has appointed veteran broker Frank Marriott as managing director and Ricky Huang (黃瑞楠) as general manager of the local unit.
Savills Taiwan (第一太平戴維斯) posted healthy earnings last year, despite a lackluster market, as it shifted its focus from the housing market to industrial land and building deals, as well as overseas property investments, Huang said.
The local unit, which has a staff of 60, plans to add 60 to 80 workers in the next two years in anticipation of business growth as the commercial and land markets are about to come out of the woods, it said.
Commercial property deals amounted to NT$31.7 billion (US$1.04 billion) this quarter, growing twofold from a year earlier, thanks mainly to the purchase of a new office complex by Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團), the nation’s largest industrial conglomerate, Huang said.
FPG needs a temporary headquarters office, while its old one is undergoing urban renewal, he added.
Cumulative transactions reached NT$41.1 billion in the first half of the year, up more than 50 percent from last year, lending support to a recovery, Huang said.
Ongoing automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies suggest more demand for new office and factory spaces, he said, adding that self-occupancy accounted for 81 percent of the property trade.
Land deals reached NT$57.7 billion in the first half of the year, nearly equal the amount for the whole of last year, as some developers increased land stock for future projects, Huang said.
Other builders have sought to diversify their income sources, prompted by a persistent decline in the nation’s birth rate and souring ties with China, Huang said.
Diversification explains why some developers have expanded into hotel operations while others seek business opportunities abroad, he said.
Property fund outflows from the Asia-Pacific region hit US$64.3 billion last year, the broker said.
Savills Taiwan can help match local idle funds with investment targets in overseas markets, he said.
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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