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Blackstone eyes HK$10B Link REIT malls; Xander to invest US$350M in India

* Blackstone Group LP is interested in purchasing over HK$10 billion of Link Real Estate Investment Trust's portfolio of shopping centers, the Nikkei Asian Review reported, citing Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao, which also cited market speculation.

The shopping center-focused real estate investment trust, which announced a portfolio review in September, sold 17 malls in the special administrative region to a Gaw Capital Partners-led consortium earlier in 2018 for HK$23 billion.

* Xander Investment Management Pvt. Ltd., the real estate private equity arm of global investment firm The Xander Group Inc., earmarked US$350 million for the development of a 4.5 million-square-foot office project in Hyderabad, India, Mint (New Delhi) reported. Xander Investment, which will mark its first significant commercial office deal in the Indian city, will acquire the asset once the development is completed, according to the deal with the Phoenix Group.

Hong Kong and China

* Chinese property companies Midea Real Estate Holding Ltd. and Dafa Properties Group Ltd. priced their Hong Kong IPOs at HK$17.00 per share and HK$4.20 per share, respectively. From the offering, Midea Real Estate expects to net nearly HK$2.92 billion, while Dafa Properties expects to raise an estimated HK$740.0 million.

* The nine-month contracted sales of Greenland Hong Kong Holdings Ltd. and Beijing Capital Land Ltd. increased year over year in the January-to-September period by approximately 9.29% to about 24.34 billion yuan and by 27.9% to about 42.25 billion yuan, respectively.

* Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. secured a HK$6.97 billion loan from the United Overseas Bank for the development of the HK$12.5 billion Lung Cheung Road land. According to the Hong Kong Economic Times, HK$4.98 billion of the loan will be used to acquire the land, while the remaining HK$2 billion will be allotted for the construction.

* Shanghai sold two residential land parcels at reserve prices at auction, Guandian.cn reported. One of the land parcels, with an area of 16,065 square meters, is zoned for rental properties and sold for 118.47 million yuan, while the other 38,620-square-meter site, dedicated mainly for small and midsize properties, sold for 2.46 billion yuan.

* Harry Tan, head of research for Asia-Pacific at TH Real Estate, told the South China Morning Post that the U.K.-based real estate investment manager would be focusing its attention on Tokyo for the meantime instead of on Hong Kong. Tan added that the special administrative region is not its key destination today while prime office buildings in the Japanese capital offer a rental return yield of between 2.8% and 3%.

* Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor disclosed in a recent policy address her government's plan to add artificial islands to tackle the rising housing prices in the city, Bloomberg News reported.

The planned reclamation of 1,700 hectares of land near Hong Kong's Lantau island is a huge gamble considering its estimated HK$1 trillion cost, according to the opposing Civic Party of the city, as cited by The (Hong Kong) Standard.

Australia

* Oxford Properties Group completed its acquisition of a 19.99% shareholding in Investa Office Fund from Investa Commercial Properties Fund. The transfer of the substantial stake is part of the Canadian investor's A$5.60-per-unit takeover proposal for the listed Australian fund, which is also targeted by U.S. private equity giant Blackstone Group.

* Separately, Investa Office completed a 22,000-square-meter office development at 151 Clarence St. in Sydney, The Australian Financial Review reported. The Barrack Place project that will be home to blue-chip tenants including Arup, Mills Oakley and Pfizer is expected to have an end value of approximately A$430 million.

* Charter Hall Group is developing a A$280 million engineering innovation hub in the central business district of Sydney's Parramatta suburb under deals with Western Sydney University and the University of New South Wales, The Australian reported. Works on the planned educational and commercial project are slated to commence in early 2019 with completion scheduled for 2021.

* Real Asset Management is planning to establish a A$300 million medical property fund, the AFR reported. The proposed fund, which will be injected with an estimated A$50 million pledge from wholesale and sophisticated investors, is targeting about A$120 million of medical property deals, according to Will Gray, Real Asset Management's head of real estate.

Singapore

* Collective sale transactions in Singapore decreased to S$353 million during the third quarter of 2018 from the S$3.8 billion recorded in the previous quarter on the back of new property cooling measures in the city, Bloomberg reported, citing Cushman & Wakefield Inc. data.

* Amid the bearish results for collective purchases in the city-state, Tang Wei Leng, Colliers International's managing director, maintained that the S$906 million en bloc sale of the Tulip Garden residential development along Farrer Road to a joint venture between Hongkong Land Holdings Ltd. subsidiary MCL Land Ltd. and Yanlord Land Group Ltd. will proceed, The (Singapore) Business Times reported.

Japan

* According to real estate research firm Tokyo Kantei Co. Ltd., the average asking price for existing detached houses in Tokyo and three surrounding prefectures increased 4.6% to ¥35.34 million in September from August, Tokyo's The Nikkei reported.

* The average vacancy rate for Grade A office spaces in Tokyo fell to 1.5% in the third quarter from 1.9% in the previous quarter, Jutaku-Shimpo-Sha reported, citing a JLL office market survey.

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The Daily Dose Asia-Pacific, Real Estate edition is updated by 6:30 a.m. Hong Kong time. Some external links may require a subscription. Links are current as of publication time, and we are not responsible if those links are unavailable later.

Rollen Catorce, Emily Lai and Jaekwon Lim contributed to this report.