Sinarmas Land ramps up overseas expansion

Singapore

SINARMAS Land, majority owned by Indonesia's well-known Widjaja family, is speeding up its overseas expansion by riding on the momentum from its recent acquisitions in London.

The Singapore-listed developer is now eyeing more commercial assets in central London and continental Europe to beef up its international portfolio and recurring income - even as it continues to accumulate land bank in its home country.

Its first London acquisition was New Brook Buildings in 2013 which it held for only 18 months before selling for a whopping 70 per cent return on equity - a "very credible performance" for a new market entrant, in the words of group executive director Robin Ng.

"That was an opportunistic divestment," Mr Ng told The Business Times. "But it's not a hit-and-run play. As you can see, we reinvested every single cent of the profit that we've made from the property that we sold. In fact, we put in more equity into the London market since we've completed the third bui…