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Hold on to your HPL shares

Merl Haggard

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
HPL's The Four Seasons Hotel situated at Park Lane overlooking Hyde Park was acquired in the 80's for a song.



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CPC Sells One Hyde Park Penthouse With $295 Million Valuation



By Patrick Gower

2nd May 2014



A penthouse in London’s One Hyde Park luxury apartment complex valued at as much as 175 million pounds ($296 million) was sold by Christian Candy’s CPC Group Ltd.

The 16,000 square foot (1,486 square meter) duplex penthouse D was valued independently at 160 million pounds to 175 million pounds, CPC said today in an e-mailed statement.

A sale at that price would value the property at more than 10,000 pounds per square foot, a U.K. record, Oliver Hooper, director of broker Huntly Hooper Ltd. said by phone. The previous record was 9,000 pounds a square foot paid for a London mansion, he said.

London luxury-home values have soared since 2009 as the world’s wealthy sought safe assets. CPC has sold properties worth more than 2 billion pounds since One Hyde Park opened in 2011, according to the statement. The apartment complex is located in Knightsbridge, home to Harrods department store, Royal Albert Hall and the five-star Berkeley hotel.


To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Gower in London at [email protected]
 

CoffeeAhSoh

Alfrescian
Loyal
20140704_forum_st.jpg



Sunday, Jul 06, 2014

Melissa Tan

The Straits Times

THE sleepy western end of the Orchard Road retail district has plenty of untapped redevelopment potential, and investors should keep an eye on firms that own these choice sites, OCBC Investment Research said yesterday.

The area stretching from Far East Shopping Centre to Tanglin Mall stands to gain from possible redevelopment plus the upcoming Orchard Boulevard MRT station, said analyst Eli Lee in a report.

Its value could also get a boost from an expected shortage of retail space in the main Orchard Road shopping district over the next few years.

The winners in all this could be the listed landlords whose "crown jewels" are in the area - Hotel Properties Limited (HPL), Wheelock Properties, Hong Fok and Bonvests, Mr Lee said.

HPL shares shot up 9.5 per cent or 38 cents to $4.40 yesterday following the release of the OCBC report.

Wheelock climbed 7 per cent or 12.5 cents to $1.91, Hong Fok was up 2.3 per cent or 2.5 cents to $1.10 and Bonvests added 1.4 per cent or two cents to $1.44.

The part of the shopping belt which Mr Lee calls "West Orchard" typically attracts fewer visitors than the eastern end, including malls such as Ion Orchard and those near Somerset MRT station.

The properties in west Orchard also tend to be older and suffer from "less access to the MRT grid via underground pedestrian links", he noted.

However, this could change in a few years.

Mr Lee pointed out that there was a "meaningful confluence" of factors that would support the area's revitalisation.

One factor is that developers have been given incentives for redevelopment under the latest Master Plan, particularly for large plots of land.

Another is better accessibility. The Government has planned comprehensive underground links from the key Orchard MRT station to the area, he noted.

The Orchard Boulevard MRT station along the upcoming Thomson Line is slated to be built near Camden Medical Centre. This could bring more foot traffic to the area once it is completed by the end of 2021.

This may encourage developers such as HPL to consider redeveloping or expanding their assets, possibly to coincide with the completion of the station, noted Mr Lee.

HPL owns four adjoining properties in west Orchard: Forum The Shopping Mall, the Hilton Singapore and Four Seasons hotels as well as HPL House.

These sit on a total of around 212,000 sq ft of land, which Mr Lee said could be redeveloped into a "mega mixed project" bigger than Ion Orchard.

If HPL embarked on such a project, it could yield as much as $1.25 billion in surplus net present value for the company, he said.

It may also give a boost to landlords nearby. "Any significant redevelopment or asset enhancements could also play a role in revitalising the west Orchard area."

Wheelock owns Wheelock Place; Hong Fok owns International Building, which is next to Shaw House; and Bonvests owns Liat Towers.


This article was first published on July 4, 2014.
 
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