Li Ka-shing unit is buyer of City Towers

Singapore

JAPURA Development, linked to Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong empire, is the party that clinched City Towers in Bukit Timah Road through a collective sale this month, The Business Times understands.

The award of the freehold collective sale site was announced by its marketing agent Colliers International late on Feb 7, hours after the tender for the en bloc sale had closed, but the buyer's identity was not disclosed.

This marks the Cheung Kong group's first acquisition in the ongoing wave of collective sales in Singapore that began last year.

Market watchers noted that the last time a unit in the Cheung Kong stable clinched a site here was in 2014, when the group bagged a 99-year leasehold site in Upper Serangoon Road in a state tender. It has since developed the mixed-use site into the Stars of Kovan.

Japura's S$401.9 million purchase price for the City Towers site, which was more than 13 per cent above the owners' reserve price, worked out to a land rate of about S$1,847 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr), after factoring in a development charge of S$3.5 million.

The prime District 10 site has a land area of 104,531 sq ft and is zoned for residential use with a 2.1 gross plot ratio. This means it can be redeveloped into a new condo project with about 219,516 sq ft gross floor area.

The tender drew seven competitive bids, Colliers had said in its Feb 7 announcement.

City Towers now comprises 77 units of apartments and maisonettes, a penthouse unit and a shop unit. Depending on the size of their unit, each residential owner stands to receive between S$2.78 million and S$11.5 million from the successful sale of the development.

Mr Li's earlier residential projects in Singapore include Thomson Grand in Upper Thomson Road, The Vision in the West Coast, Cairnhill Crest and Costa del Sol condo in Bayshore Road.