Gaw Capital Partners, through a fund under its management, and consortium partners, including Goldman Sachs, have won a bid to acquire a retail portfolio comprising 12 shopping centers in Hong Kong from Link Asset Management Limited at HK$12.01 billion ($1.54 billion) and an average price of around HK$7,839 per square foot excluding parking.
The portfolio comprises a number of strategically located properties across Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories that sit in the heart of densely populated communities. The gross floor area of the portfolio totals 1.1 million square feet of prime retail space and comes with more than 4,700 parking spaces that are connected to highly convenient transport links. Their excellent accessibility and holistic shopping environments have made them attractive destinations for retailers and hubs of community life for residents.
“We and our partners are confident about Hong Kong’s future, and believe these malls will continue to serve important functions in the community,” said Goodwin Gaw, chairman and managing principal of Gaw Capital Partners. “Followed by the bid we won together with our consortium partners to acquire 17 shopping malls in 2017, we will further leverage our experience to evolve these malls into refreshed and renewed centers of local life and collaborate with the local NGOs and existing tenants to build a better neighborhood for themselves.”
The shopping centers included in the portfolio are: Retail and Car Park within Ap Lei Chau Estate, Chun Shek Shopping Center, Fortune Shopping Centre, King Lam Shopping Center, Lei Tung Commercial Center, Ming Tak Shopping Center, Shan King Commercial Center, Siu Hei Commercial Center, Retail and Car Park within Tai Ping Estate, Wah Ming Shopping Center, Wah Sum Shopping Center, Wang Tau Hom (Wang Fai Center).
Gaw Capital has more than 13 years of experience investing in and/or turning around commercial properties in Greater China, including Hong Kong. The firm successfully transformed and repositioned properties such as 133 Wai Yip Street in Hong Kong, a former 12-story industrial building turned creative office space; Sky Bridge HQ, a mixed-use project located in the heart of Linkong Economic Park in Shanghai; Pacific Century Place in Beijing, a 170,000-square-meter (1.8 million-square-foot) renovated mixed-use commercial property with two office towers and two serviced apartment blocks on a retail podium; Cross Tower in Shanghai, a 22-story office with a two-story retail podium; Ciro’s Plaza in Shanghai, a mixed-use property with a 39-story office building and a 28,000-square-meter (302,000-square-foot) retail mall; Plaza 353 in Shanghai, a 40,000-square-meter (430,000-square-foot) renovated mall with historical heritage status; Popark Plaza in Guangzhou, a 92,400-square-meter (994,000-square-foot) retail mall connected to the Guangzhou East Railway Station, with high-speed trains to Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and access to two major subway lines; and Metropolitan Plaza in Guangzhou, an 88,800-square-meter (956,000-square-foot) mall located above two subway lines.
