Major commercial property transactions in Taiwan were lackluster in the first six months of this year, compared with the strong residential market, due to a high comparison base over the same period last year, property broker Savills Taiwan (第一太平戴維斯) said yesterday.
Commercial property deals of more than NT$300 million (US$9.23 million) totaled NT$65.8 billion in the first half of this year, suggesting a 10 percent retreat from a year earlier, due mainly to an unfavorable comparison base linked to the liquidation sales of buildings owned by a real-estate investment trust (REIT).
The Shin Kong No. 1 REIT (新光一號) sold its six buildings in Taipei for NT$30.7 billion in the second quarter of last year.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Lingering inflation and restrictive monetary policy helped weigh on the commercial segment of the real-estate market, unlike residential properties that have benefited from favorable lending terms and wealth inflation induced by stock rallies at home and abroad.
Office buildings appeared to be the most in demand, generating NT$23.7 billion of the deals, or 36 percent, Savills Taiwan said.
Tatung Co (大同) sold an old office building in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) for NT$13.13 billion, equivalent to NT$15.26 million per ping (3.3m2) for the land on which the buyer group indicated it plans to build a luxury apartment complex after securing more nearby plots, it said.
Rich Development Inc (力麒建設) sold its headquarters to an institutional buyer for NT$1.28 billion and an individual investor acquired an office building near Yuanshan MRT Station for NT$1.8 billion, it said.
The deals reflected keen interest in existing office buildings by investors seeking future value gains, Savills Taiwan said.
By contrast, corporate buyers prefer presale or newly completed office buildings that can better meet self-occupancy and energy conservation needs, as well as enhance their working efficiency, it added.
Industrial properties are also popular, driving a sizeable NT$17.5 billion of the transactions, the broker said.
I-Hwa Industrial Co (怡華實業) bought an old plant in New Taipei City for NT$3.1 billion, Sigurd UTC Corp (矽格聯測) purchased a used plant in Hsinchu City for NT$1.68 billion and Delta Electronics Co (台達電) acquired two buildings in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖), it said.
Property developers emerged as the most active buyers, pouring NT$21.3 billion into the commercial property market so far this year, followed by technology firms at NT$16.2 billion, Savills Taiwan said.
Developers are buying old buildings to replenish their land holdings, while semiconductor firms are expanding their research and development capacity as a result of a boom in demand for artificial intelligence products, the broker said.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS