Chow Tai Fook Reported to Have Hid Illicit Junket Links and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

Henry Cheng’s Chow Tai Fook was tagged in an Australian government report (Image: New World Development)

The drama around Australia’s Star Entertainment Group continues to build with local news accounts citing a government report that Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook hid its links to an illegal junket operator, with that story leading today’s roundup. Also in the new are a pair of data centre projects in Japan and Korea and a buyout offer for one of Indonesia’s largest developers.

Aussie Govt Report Says Chow Tai Fook Hid Links to Illegal Junket Organiser
One of Star Entertainment’s two major Hong Kong-based investors concealed its relationship with criminal junket operator Alvin Chau from the regulators, according to a long-secret Queensland government inquiry.

Chow Tai Fook Enterprises is at the centre of Star’s hopes of staying afloat, and has signed a deal that hands it and its partner Far East Consortium control of the company’s Queen’s Wharf casino complex in Brisbane. Read more>>

Mitsubishi JV to Invest $664M to Develop Kawasaki Data Centre
Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp. plans to build a data centre on property where JFE Holding once operated a blast furnace in Kawasaki, Kanagawa prefecture, as it strives to meet the growing demand from power-thirsty generative artificial intelligence and other systems.

Construction is expected to be completed in fiscal 2030 at a cost of JPY 100 billion ($664 million) to JPY 150 billion. The Kawasaki fits into a trend in which old factory and industrial sites are being repurposed for AI-linked data centres. Read more>>

Shares in Indonesia’s Sinarmas Land Jump 24% on Widjaja Buyout Offer
Shares of Sinarmas Land surged on Friday morning after it announced on Thursday that it received a S$0.31 per share privatisation offer from an entity controlled by Indonesia’s billionaire Widjaja family.

As at 9.15 am on Friday, the counter climbed 23.6 percent or S$0.065 to S$0.34 after 3.8 million shares changed hands. The last time the counter traded at such levels was in October 2024. Read more>>

Korea’s Okestro Cloud Plans $478M Data Centre in South Korea’s Sejong City
A recently established cloud company plans to develop a data centre in Sejong, South Korea. Local press reports indicate that Okestro Cloud, the cloud subsidiary of cloud orchestration provider Okestro, signed an MoU with Sejong City this week to convert a vacant office building into a data centre.

Okestro is to invest KRW 700 billion ($477.9 million) in redeveloping the Sejong Finance centre II building in Eojin-dong into a 40MW data centre. The vacant building totals 30,000 square metres (322,917 square feet) across seven stories (three of which are underground). Read more>>

Vanke, COLI Write-Offs Seen as Part of China Property Recovery Wave
China Vanke and China Overseas Land & Investment are among the major developers reporting next week amid signs of recovery in the Chinese property sector.

A string of recent profit warnings could be a positive future signal, Bloomberg Intelligence said. “Steep write-offs could set these companies up for a better profit outlook in 2025 which could improve earnings profiles, lift equity valuations and aid potential equity financing, which in turn could boost liquidity.” Read more>>

China Resources Land Profit Dives 18.5%
China Resources Land reported a net profit of RMB 25.58 billion ($753 million) for 2024, down 18.45 percent year-on-year, with China’s real estate industry remaining in a period of deep adjustment.

The board proposed a final dividend of RMB 1.119 per share, bringing the full-year payout to RMB 1.319, down 8.47 percent year-on-year. Its revenue rose 11 percent year-on-year to RMB 278.8 billion. Contracted sales totaled RMB 261.1 billion, down 15 percent year-on-year, while contracted gross floor area fell 13.3 percent to 11.34 million square metres. Read more>>

Paragon REIT Investors to Vote on Privatisation on 22 April
Unitholders will vote on the proposed privatisation of Paragon Reit in an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) and scheme meeting on Apr 22, the board said in a bourse filing on Thursday. If approved, unitholders will receive S$0.98 per unit from the offeror Times Properties.

PrimePartners, the independent financial adviser (IFA) appointed by the real estate investment trust for the privatisation offer, said that the offer was fair and reasonable, having considered the factors set out in its letter to the Reit’s independent directors and trustee. Read more>>

Law Firm BCLP to Exit Asia, Shutting Singapore, Hong Kong Offices
US-headquartered law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) has confirmed that “after careful consideration we have made the decision to start an orderly wind down of operations in Asia which we anticipate concluding towards the end of the year.”

The firm currently operates offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. A spokesperson explained that the firm is now prioritizing investment in its transactional platform and will focus operations selectively in the US, UK, Europe, and the Middle East. Read more>>

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