Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽) yesterday pushed Taipei real-estate prices to a record high after its auction-based acquisition of an office building near Pacific Sogo Department Store’s (太平洋崇光百貨) Zhongxiao branch in Taipei.
The auction saw massive offers made for plots of land and commercial space yesterday, auction organizer DTZ said.
The life insurer, the nation’s second largest after Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), won the auction for the nine-story building on Zhongxiao E Road Sec 4 with a bid of NT$1.94 billion (US$65.39 million), 3.14 percent higher than the asking price, DTZ said.
The bid translates into NT$14.53 million per ping (3.3m2) for two small plots of land and NT$9.29 million for a storefront, both a new high, Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) head researcher Jhally Chiu said.
The 13-year-old building has 992.6 ping of floor space sitting on two plots of land totaling 133.41 ping, auction data showed. It includes parking spaces for 22 vehicles.
More than 20 life insurance companies, land developers, private equity funds and others voiced interest in the property, DTZ said, declining to reveal the number of bidders.
Fubon’s figure topped the NT$14.05 million per ping Ting Ho Development Co (頂禾開發), an affiliate of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), offered in September last year to secure a 14-story building on Dunhua S Road in Taipei.
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