BlackRock seeks buyers for The Intermark

KUALA LUMPUR: BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, is seeking bids to sell two office towers and a mall here, according to a sale document viewed by Bloomberg.

Intermark Sdn Bhd, owned by BlackRock, is planning to sell the 62-storey Vista office tower, the 39-story Integra office building and a retail mall in The Intermark, a mixed-use development in Jalan Tun Razak, a document obtained by Bloomberg showed.

The bids will close on May 30 and the deal is expected to be completed by November, according to the document. BlackRock declined to comment in an emailed response to queries from Bloomberg.

The Edge weekly reported on Feb 3 this year, quoting sources, that BlackRock had asked international real estate consultants in the country to submit a request for proposal for a planned sale of the RM2.2 billion The Intermark.

The proposed sale reportedly will not include the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel. The Edge had reported that a separate deal is being worked out to hive off the hotel for an estimated RM350 million.

“If the gross development value of RM2.2 billion is anything to go by, removing the hotel asset from the equation will mean that the asking price for the other three components could be at least RM1.85 billion,” the report said.

According to Bloomberg, BlackRock has been exiting its investments from MGPA funds after it bought the private-equity property investment advisory firm last year to expand its real estate business in Asia- Pacific and Europe. It sold the 305-room Westin hotel in Singapore’s central business district last year to Daisho Group, a Japanese developer, and is in talks with Singapore’s Royal Group Holdings Pte Ltd to sell the 540-room DoubleTree by Hilton also at the Intermark, a person with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month.

MGPA Asia Fund II bought the Intermark assets for about US$600 million (RM1.96 billion) in 2007, according to the asset manager. The Intermark has two office towers with a net leasable area of 1.32 million sq ft, while the mall has 208,698 sq ft available for lease, the document showed.

Together with the MGPA assets, New York-based BlackRock manages about US$23.5 billion, focusing on real estate funds management, co-investments and separate-account mandates for institutional investors, BlackRock said in October.

Savills plc is marketing the properties for BlackRock, according to the sale document.


This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on April 23, 2014.