Billionaire buys condo building in Singapore for $743M

Billionaire Quek Leng Chan’s GuocoLand and joint venture partners are purchasing a condominium development in Singapore for $743 million, marking the largest residential site sale in the city-state in more than a decade.

GuocoLand is buying Pacific Mansion, a 290-unit condo building near Singapore’s business district, Bloomberg reported. The deal works out to roughly $1,987 per square foot. The buyers plan to redevelop the property. CBRE brokered the deal.

The sale is regarded as the largest in the current en-bloc cycle, exceeded only by the S$1.3 billion ($986 million) sale of Farrer Court more than a decade ago. The deal perhaps indicates that demand remains strong for older residential sites pegged for redevelopment. Apartment sales for redevelopment in Singapore hit S$3.1 billion ($2.35 billion) in the first two months of 2018, which is almost double the total seen during the same time period in 2007, according to Nomura analyst Min Chow Sai.

“It means the market is still very active and looking for opportunities,” Galven Tan, director of capital markets at CBRE, told Bloomberg. [Bloomberg] — Kathryn Brenzel