Logan Property eyeing more after winning Stirling Rd project

Hong Kong

HONG Kong-listed Chinese developer Logan Property, which recently jointly placed a record bid of over S$1 billion for a Stirling Road residential plot, is eyeing more commercial and residential projects in Singapore amid tightening measures against developers in the mainland.

Logan Property, together with Chinese conglomerate Nanshan Group, was last month awarded the tender for the large 99-year-leasehold Stirling Road site after putting in a joint bid of S$1,050.7 per square foot per plot ratio on gross floor area.

It marked Logan Property's debut in the Singapore property market, and the firm, which had a market capitalisation of HK$27.9 billion (S$5 billion) as at last week, is studying other potential commercial and residential projects in the Lion City's "prime locations", said investor relations director Derek Lee.

"We find that the Singapore market, particularly the operating environment and the business environment, is relatively business-friendly, simply because in China, we have different kinds of tightening measures, but this is not really the case in Singapore," Mr Lee told The Business Times.

Founded in Shantou, in China's Guangdong province, and listed in Hong Kong since 2013, Logan Property has largely been focused on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The company's flagship project, the five-million square metre Shenzhen residential project Logan City, ranked ninth in total transaction volume in China last year.

But Logan Property is seeking to expand its footprint beyond the Greater Bay region this year, following the tightening of property policies by Beijing since last October.

These include controls over government land auctions and developer financing to address concerns over an emerging property bubble in the mainland.

"Due to the tightening measures in China, China developers are all facing difficulties in the China market. We are not giving up our Chinese property market but we do need to, and we also want to, look around," said Mr Lee.

"We want to deploy more resources to have more overseas assets . . . to diversify our land bank portfolio, hedge the US dollar against the renminbi, and to raise our profile through brand building."

Singapore is Logan Property's first stop outside Greater China, and a market that the company has been "studying for quite a long time", especially since "tightening measures in China have been getting more and more serious", he added. While Logan Property has "no goal" in terms of percentage of Singapore's property market share, Mr Lee said that his company "will continue to participate in future land tenders" and is looking to hire more locals for the team in the Republic.

The firm expects the Stirling Road project to be "good in terms of profitability" given its location in the popular Queenstown area, he added.

Logan Property's expertise lies in residential development, with more than two decades of experience in the sector since first launching in the mainland, but the company is also "open to other types of property in Singapore", said Mr Lee.

He declined to provide a timeline for upcoming purchases, but said that his company is more inclined towards "projects in prime locations".

He added: "Right now, we have actually quite a few channels to enter more and more projects . . . both residential and commercial in Singapore."