ON THE QT
Villa World, a home-grown Gold Coast housing company, is kicking some winning goals on Hope Island.
VILLA World, a homegrown Gold Coast housing company, is kicking some winning goals on Hope Island – without hammering in one nail.
THE ASX-listed company spent a modest $2.11 million last September on an 8000sq m-plus waterfront townhouse site in Marina Quays Boulevard.
Six months later a Chinese group, operating under the name Changfa Qld, bought the property for $4.8 million.
It seems Changfa, part of a conglomerate operating in the agricultural machinery and refrigeration industries, is still hot to trot on the Gold Coast and that its ambitions, and Villa World’s profits, on Hope Island aren’t stopping with that one transaction.
Changfa is believed to have a deal in train to pay the Broadbeach-based developer about $17 million for a fivetitle waterfront holding assembled over 18 months or so at a cost of $10 million.
That transaction, if it proceeds, would be the latest in a string of successful “arrangements” by Villa World and CEO Craig Treasure in the past couple of years. Some, like the deals with Changfa, have returned quick and juicy profits.
Others have been more long-term, being land joint ventures that have enabled Villa World to retain capital while sharing development profits and earning project management fees.
These ventures span Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and include both Chinese and Singaporean groups and Australian richlisters.
The company and partner CVC, on the eve of last Christmas, announced the conditional sale of the balance of their Donnybrook estate in Victoria to a domestic Chinese buyer, with payment spread over a four-year period.
That deal, in tandem with what Villa World and CVC have made on Donnybrook’s first stage, will gross them a $100 million-plus profit.
On the day the Donnybrook deal was announced, Villa World sold 49 per cent of a project under way in the Melbourne suburb of Wollert to Singapore’s Ho Bee group, developer of the Rhapsody tower in Surfers Paradise.
That deal gave Villa World an immediate $5.2 million net return.
Two years ago the company, in tandem with Sydney billionaires Ron and Tony Perich, bought a
$50 million site at Greenbank, Brisbane, capable of providing 1000 housing lots.
Villa World already had been doing business with the Perich brothers in Sydney.
Not surprisingly, Villa World appears set to report a robust result, both profit and sales-wise, when next month it reports its 2017-18 results.
It’s likely to have sold well in excess of 1400 titles and it has forecast net profit to be in excess of $41 million.
That net could swell if the mooted latest sale to Changfa Qld went unconditional before June 30.
The Changfa group, owned by the Jiangsu Changfa Industrial Group from Changzhou city, isn’t short of cash. Fifteen months ago it paid $57.5 million for a residential project in Sydney.