Metro Holdings
Mainboard-listed department store operator Metro Holdings, which also invests in real estate, has re-entered Australia with plans to take a minority stake in a property portfolio for A$95.8 million (S$89.5 million) under a joint venture agreement disclosed yesterday.
Paying with a mix of internal cash resources and external borrowings, Metro will take a 20 per cent interest in 14 freehold properties by subscribing for units in three property trusts, while regional property group Sim Lian will own the rest of the portfolio.
Metro and Sim Lian have agreed to set up an asset management company to look after the portfolio of four office buildings and 10 malls, spread across Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. The portfolio has a net lettable area of 130,925 sq m, with 96.7 per cent committed average occupancy and a weighted average lease expiry of about eight years, Metro said in a bourse filing.
CapitaLand
Blue-chip developer CapitaLand has sold a serviced residence in Hong Kong for HK$581.8 million (S$101 million) to an unnamed third party, according to a bourse filing yesterday.
The mainboard-listed firm said it has divested fully from a unit that owns Citadines Mercer Hong Kong in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, in line with a strategy to rejig the property portfolio.
CapitaLand added that the price tag - which was reached on a willing buyer, willing seller basis - took into account the net asset value of the property owner, as well as the agreed value of Citadines Mercer Hong Kong, which was pegged at HK$740.8 million as at Oct 31.
CapitaLand's wholly owned serviced residence unit, The Ascott, had bought the property - now deemed to be at "the optimal stage of its life cycle" - for HK$545 million, back in 2014.
Yeo Hiap Seng
Mainboard-listed drinks maker Yeo Hiap Seng saw a surge in third-quarter earnings on the back of narrower losses at associates and joint ventures, as well as the absence of fair-value losses on equity investments recognised in the year-ago period.
Net profit swelled from $95,000 to $2.76 million for the three months to Sept 30, according to results released yesterday, as revenue rose by 9.6 per cent to $93.8 million on higher sales in Singapore, Cambodia, China and Europe.
Earnings per share stood at 0.48 cent, against 0.02 cent before.
