Adding heat to the commercial property market, Ting Ho Development Co (頂禾開發), an affiliate of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), yesterday won the auction of China Bills Finance Corp’s (中華票券) headquarters building with a record high offer, organizer DTZ said.
Ting Ho Development, whose parent group owns China’s biggest instant noodle brand, Masterkong, and Taiwan’s Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品), beat eight rivals by offering NT$4.63 billion (US$152.21 million) for the 14-story building on Dunhua S Road in Taipei.
That meant a 72.7 percent premium over the floor price of NT$2.68 billion and translated into NT$1.72 million per ping (3.3m2) for a total of 2,696 ping in floor space sitting on a land plot of 329 ping, DTZ said.
The figure topped the NT$1.32 million per ping Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) offered the previous week to secure a 62 percent stake in an adjacent building — the underlying asset for real-estate-backed securities issued by Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) in 2005.
“Full ownership renders the building an attractive buy,” DTZ general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) said. “The new owner may apply for an urban regeneration permit and turn it into a luxury home project or other purposes as seen fit later.”
It is not the first time Ting Hsin has sought to expand its real-estate portfolio.
Last week, it lost the REAT auction to Cathay Life with an offer of NT$9.1 billion. In July 2009, it became the largest private shareholder in Taipei Financial Center Corp, which owns the Taipei 101 skyscraper. It has voiced interest in acquiring more shares in the world’s tallest occupied building.
The asset divestment is expected to generate profits valued at NT$3.43 billion for China Bills, judging by its purchase costs at NT$1.2 billion, Yen said.
Shares in China Bills closed up 0.2 percent to NT$9.92, weaker than TAIEX’s 0.8 percent rise, as investors remained cautious about financial shares amid Europe’s debt crisis.
Sherry Wu (吳瑤華), director of investment and markets at Jones Lang LaSalle, an international property consultancy, said the commercial market has seen -active transactions of late, driven by profit-taking and attempts by life insurers to digest excess liquidity.
“The sellers opted to realize profits, probably due to concerns that commercial property prices are approaching peaks,” Wu said. “The buyers, on the other hand, are mostly large-scale domestic insurers that have made known their intent to lower cash levels.”
Ruentex Development Co (潤泰創新), Taiwan’s major supermarket operator and property developer, is slated to sell two plots of land near Taipei Railway Station today to trim inventory and strengthen capital.
En Tie Commercial Bank (安泰銀行) plans to auction a stake in a building near Ta-an Forest Park next month to divest idle assets.
Wu expects commercial property transactions to exceed NT$120 billion this year after totaling NT$85.4 billion prior to the auction yesterday.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
GREAT SUCCESS: Republican Senator Todd Young expressed surprise at Trump’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running US lawmakers who helped secure billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to revoke the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, signaling that any repeal effort in the US Congress would fall short. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who negotiated the law, on Wednesday said that Trump’s demand would fail, while a top Republican proponent, US Senator Todd Young, expressed surprise at the president’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running. The CHIPS Act is “essential for America leading the world in tech, leading the world in AI [artificial
DOMESTIC SUPPLY: The probe comes as Donald Trump has called for the repeal of the US$52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which the US Congress passed in 2022 The Office of the US Trade Representative is to hold a hearing tomorrow into older Chinese-made “legacy” semiconductors that could heap more US tariffs on chips from China that power everyday goods from cars to washing machines to telecoms equipment. The probe, which began during former US president Joe Biden’s tenure in December last year, aims to protect US and other semiconductor producers from China’s massive state-driven buildup of domestic chip supply. A 50 percent US tariff on Chinese semiconductors began on Jan. 1. Legacy chips use older manufacturing processes introduced more than a decade ago and are often far simpler than
Gasoline and diesel prices this week are to decrease NT$0.5 and NT$1 per liter respectively as international crude prices continued to fall last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to decrease to NT$29.2, NT$30.7 and NT$32.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to cost NT$27.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$27.7 at Formosa pumps, the companies said in separate statements. Global crude oil prices dropped last week after the eight OPEC+ members said they would
RSS