nex receives Green Mark Gold Award
nex (picture), an upcoming mall at Serangoon, has topped up, says the development’s owner, Gold Ridge Pte Ltd. The mall has more than 600,000 sq ft of net lettable area and is adjacent to the Serangoon MRT station and bus interchange. It has leased out more than 95% of space with more than 300 confirmed tenants. nex was also awarded the Green Mark Gold Award by the Building and Construction Authority for being a development with environmentally friendly features, resulting in estimated savings of 17% in energy consumption and 33% of water consumption. When the mall opens for business in November, it is expected to attract monthly shopper traffic of two million.

Top bid of S$176 million for Sengkang East EC site
A joint venture by United Engineers Ltd and Lee Metal Group has been awarded the tender for a Seng­kang executive condominium (EC) site. The bid, tabled in the name of Maxdin Pte Ltd and Lee Carriers Pte Ltd, offered S$176 million. The site, which is at Sengkang East Avenue/Buangkok Drive, covers 183,002 sq ft and has a gross floor area of 549,006 sq ft. The winning bid translates into a unit price of S$321 psf per plot ratio, which CB Richard Ellis executive director Li Hiaw Ho describes as slightly above expectations. A nearby EC site at Compassvale Bow was won in March at a price of S$315 psf ppr. “This could be due to the fact that there are no more EC sites in Sengkang being offered on the Confirmed and Reserve Lists of the Government Land Sales programme for 2H2010,” he says. The six other bidders offered between S$115.84 million and S$160.12 million. Li estimates a break-even cost of S$600 to S$620 psf for the project, and that the development will be sold at more than S$650 psf. Resale transactions in the neighbourhood between January and May were from S$500 to S$620 psf, notes Li.

Singapore ranked most livable Asian city
Singapore was rated the Asian city with the highest quality of living by human resource consulting firm Mercer. In a recently announced worldwide ranking, the city-state came in at 28, scoring 103.5 points in Mercer’s index. Vienna was rated the city with the world’s best quality of living, with 108.6 points. New York City, at 49, was used as the base (100 points) for this index.

In Asia Pacific, Auckland was again ranked fourth in the world, tying with Vancouver. Sydney was ranked 10th, Wellington 12th, Melbourne 18th and Perth 21st.

Worldwide, Zurich and Geneva placed second and third respectively. Tokyo is the second-highest-ranked Asian city at 40th. The three key Chinese cities — Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong — were ranked 114th, 98th and 71st respectively.

Among other Asean capital cities, Kuala Lumpur was ranked 74th, Bangkok 119th, Manila 128th and Jakarta 141st, says Mercer.

KSH Holdings’ FY2010 net profit up 35%
Construction and property firm KSH Holdings has reported a net profit of S$18.3 million for FY2010 ended March 31, which was 35% higher than the previous year. Revenue was down 12% to S$290.9 million. The company said it benefited from a higher margin (from 9.1% to 11.7%) in its construction business — which accounted for 98.1% of the company’s revenue during the year. Property development and management business accounted for $5.5 million, or 1.9% of its revenue.

The company believes that Singapore’s construction industry will be “robust”, with a greater volume of infrastructure projects expected from the public sector, including public housing, healthcare facilities and industrial developments. KSH also anticipates stronger demand from private residential projects, which will help maintain a sustained level of construction activities over the next two to three years. As at March 31, the company had an order book of more than $314 million. KSH Holdings plans to pay a dividend of one cent per share. — The Edge Singapore

This article appeared in City & Country, the property pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 809, June 7-13, 2010 

 

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