Case Study - ECMall and Metropolis Tower
| Country: | China |
|---|---|
| Business area: | Asian Real Estate |
| Sector: | Retail and Office |
| Project value: | US$350m |
| Investment date: | 2007 |
| Completion date: | 2009 |
| Realisation date: | 2010 (partial realisation) |
Development of prime retail mall and office building in Beijing.
ECMall, a 70,000m2 retail mall, and Metropolis Tower, a 35,000m2 office tower, form a mixed-use development in ZhongGuancun, Beijing’s centre of information technology and higher education, into which the InfraRed-Nan Fung Asian real estate team invested US$80m in December 2007.
ECMall lies at the heart of a well-established retail destination and is served by underground access to the subway system. Designed by international architects Benoy, the mall targets upper-middle class, white-collar consumers (an underserved consumer demographic in Beijing) and is anchored by high-profile tenants including H&M, ckJeans, Uniqlo, Sephora and Golden Jaguar (China’s most popular buffet-style restaurant). ECMall’s international look and feel and high-quality management standards have attracted a number of major brands away from competing schemes of lower specification. Metropolis Tower is ideally situated in close proximity to a number of high-profile corporate occupiers including Lenovo and Microsoft and provides high-quality office space designed to international standards.
In September 2010, the InfraRed-Nan Fung real estate team successfully secured the sale of Metropolis Tower to a US-based institutional investor. Offers were received from a number of institutional buyers, creating price competition which enabled the asset to be sold at a very attractive sale price.
In addition to Metropolis Tower’s strong property fundamentals, buyers were attracted by the clean corporate structure put in place, which made the asset uniquely accessible to offshore investors. Coming on the heels of the sale of One Financial Street, these two deals together demonstrated the team’s ability to structure and complete transactions both onshore and offshore of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a rare achievement in the China real estate market.
