Top Australian developer to double debt

[SYDNEY] Meriton Pty, Australia's biggest apartment developer, plans to double its debt this year from about A$300 million (S$340.8 million) to buy land amid record low interest rates and soaring demand for apartments.

"I've now a lot more empty land available, and the land goes up; it's a very good investment," Harry Triguboff, the billionaire founder and managing director of closely held Meriton, said in an interview in Sydney. "Land values are going up a lot in Sydney, but it's feasible to build because prices are going up too."

The billionaire forecasts that apartment prices will rise as much as 6 per cent this year in Australia's most populous city. They gained 11.5 per cent in December from a year earlier, the fastest annual growth since 2002, according to the RP Data-Rismark Home Value Index. Meriton, which had been debt free since 2000, took out a loan in early 2013 to fund new developments as it held on to more of the apartments it built to capitalise on rental demand.