Uncertain direction for Coast’s $1b towers
SPECIAL REPORT: WHERE TO NOW FOR JEWEL
JEWEL’S new owners may change the pricing, marketing — even the name of the billion-dollar project as it looks to offload the 60 per cent of apartments still available after two and a half years of sales.
Yuhu Group settled on their purchase of Wanda Group’s 55 per cent share of the development on Friday, saying they were looking to “reposition” the product and brand.
Sales have been suspended since February, when Yuhu Group settled 45 per cent of the acquisition with Ridong Group, which held the project’s commercial real estate licence.
Yuhu paid Wanda $1.13 billion in the sale, which included Wanda’s Circular Quay development in Sydney and their share of Jewel. The amount paid for Ridong’s share is thought to be around $260 million.
Yuhu this week released stunning new images of the glass-covered project as the three towers progress on the Broadbeach beachfront.
In a refreshingly frank reply to the Bulletin’s questions about the level of interest in the project, a Yuhu Group representative said the company was “rebranding” and “re-positioning the product”.
“For a stunning project like Jewel no doubt we have received
expression of interest from many buyers but because we are working on repositioning the product, I cannot, for my life, tell you for sure what strategy (including prices) we are working towards,” said chairman’s office secretary Jingxin Lin.
“This is exactly what our sales team has been working so hard on — we will have to give them a bit more time. It will all be working process.”
Prices for three-bedroom apartments in tower three start from $3.982 million while twobedroom apartments start from $2.575 million.
According to Urbis, the price of the average apartment sold on the central Gold Coast in the December 2017 quarter was $731,786.
According to documents to shareholders, 40 per cent of Jewel’s luxury apartments had sold by the end of December, and there is more than $500 million of work to be done on Jewel and another $859 million to finish the Sydney project, for which pre-sales have not commenced.
Christopher Jones, director of residential projects for Savills Gold Coast, said Jewel’s apartments were overpriced and the branding needed a makeover. “They’ve sold about 70 per cent of tower one, where the lowerpriced apartments were, but of the stock they have left, the price is just too high. It’s smart for them to rebrand it because it’s got a stink about it.
“(But) it’s on the beach and if they get it right they’ll sell it — it’s a great product but the price does have to be revisited.
“They have some apartments up to $30,000 per square metre which is just stupid. We’re not in New York.”
Since construction of Jewel began in 2016, Wanda heavily targeted wealthy Chinese investors, even partnering with Jetstar to fly planeloads of prospective buyers direct to the Gold Coast from Wuhan.
Queensland Sotheby’s International Realty principal Paul Arthur, who was marketing the project under Wanda Ridong’s ownership, said the project’s price range had been well-re- ceived internationally.
He expects Yuhu Group to further pursue high net-worth individuals in New Zealand, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Middle East.
“We’re in a holding pattern for the present time, waiting for the new owners to get their licensing in place and for their marketing team to start firing.
“While it may look expensive for the Gold Coast, relative to the state capitals and the international market, it’s actually relatively cheap.
“When we took Jewel to the New Zealand market, there certainly wasn’t any negative feedback as to the cost per square metre. It sat within a very comfortable price range.”
Company records reveal AWH is wholly owned by a company called Cloudstone Capital which was created two weeks before the sale and has a single shareholder — 23-yearold Huang Jiquan, an Australian citizen born in Guangzhou.
Mr Huang’s father, Huang Xiangmo, is founder of Yuhu Group. Malcolm Turnbull last year used parliamentary privilege to describe the Sydney property developer as an “agent of a foreign country”.
Mr Huang was linked to a donations scandal that engulfed the Labor Party culminating in the resignation of Labor Senator Sam Dastyari.
In a statement this week, Mr Huang confirmed the purchase from Wanda had settled and reaffirmed the projects’ completed joint value of $2.8 billion.
“These are investments for the future so our vision can be summed up as ‘built to last’ rather than ‘built to sell’,” he said.
Yuhu Group CEO Nick Tobin said the acquisitions marked the beginning of an exciting new period for the company. “These are terrific projects for us to be associated with given their iconic nature and the economic benefits they will bring.”
Wanda Commercial had earlier tendered to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange documents that revealed the financial strain the project had placed on their finances and those of their parent group as the Chinese Government put the squeeze on foreign financing.
Wanda’s sale of their stake in Jewel came as the group reported a 10.8 per cent decline in revenue, the second fall in two years, as they retreated from their expansion into entertainment and overseas property.