Sunway buys Kajang, Subang Jaya plots for RM231m
Latest acquisitions bring total gross development value to RM53.5b
www.nst.com.my/business
SUNWAY Bhd has continued with its aggressive landbanking, with the acquisitions of two plots in Selangor. The company said yesterday it had bought 5.99ha and 2.14ha freehold sites in USJ 1, Subang Jaya, and Kajang for RM168 million and RM63 million, respectively.
This came after it sold Sunway Clio Property to Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust (Sunway REIT) for RM340 million earlier this week and purchases of land in Jalan Belfield and Jalan Peel, here.
The latest acquisitions bring Sunway’s total landbank to 1,346ha with a total gross development value (GDV) of RM53.5 billion.
Cumulatively, in the last six months, the developer has acquired four plots of strategic land with a combined GDV of RM5 billion.
Kenanga Investment Bank said Sunway ’s landbanking activity and asset disposals could continue this year and would help increase its GDV.
“The disposal of Sunway Clio Property to Sunway REIT would clear up its balance sheet to make way for more land acquisitions this year, despite having replenished its RM5 billion GDV.
“We believe there could be more landbanking deals in the pipeline and we do not rule out further asset disposals,” it said in a research note.
Kenanga has reaffirmed a “market perform” assessment on Sunway.
Sunway Malaysia and Singapore property division managing director Sarena Cheah said Sunway’s healthy balance sheet would allow the company to continue replenishing its landbank.
“In Klang Valley, we are actively looking for transit-oriented developments (TODs) where we can leverage our prior experience of building integrated and mixed-use developments near public transportation networks,” she said.
The company said the land would be suitable for TODs as the sites were close to mass rapid transit, light rail transit, bus rapid transit and monorail stations.
On the USJ land, Sunway said it would use it for warehousing and storage facilities for its trading manufacturing businesses, but would subsequently look at redeveloping it into a mixed-development with a GDV of RM1.4 billion in the next five years.
The Kajang land comes with semi-completed structures which is part of a discontinued development.
Sunway plans to continue building on the semi-completed structure but will turn it into a mixed development comprising retail podium and commercial lots as well as serviced apartment/SoHo units with an estimated GDV of RM460 million in the next five years.
Besides sizeable landbank, Sunway also owns and manages more than 30 million sq ft of commercial properties.