PAG, Mapletree to buy Hong Kong’s Goldin Financial Global Centre for $713 million

Asia-focused investment firm PAG and Singapore-based real estate group Mapletree Investments said on Thursday they have entered into a 50-50 joint venture to buy Hong Kong office building Goldin Financial Global Centre from receivers for $713 million.

The price of HK$5.6 billion was less than half of the HK$14.3 billion that developer Goldin Financial Holdings Ltd was trying to sell it for in September 2020.

Goldin Financial Global Centre is located in Kowloon East and was completed in 2016 with a total lettable area of 886,703 square feet (82,377 square metres), PAG and Mapletree said in a statement.

PAG Real Assets, the real estate business of Hong Kong-based PAG, has been on an acquisition spree, snapping up and managing over 7,000 properties across the Asia-Pacific region over the past two decades, including office space and logistics hubs. It now has over $10 billion in equity under management, PAG said.

“This transaction further expands PAG Real Assets’ footprint in Hong Kong, where we see the ongoing post-Covid recovery creating attractive opportunities for us and our investors,” said PAG’s president, Jon-Paul Toppino.

Mapletree owns and manages real estate assets globally amounting to S$78.7 billion ($59.17 billion) as at March 31, 2022, including office space and student accommodation. In Hong Kong, it has assets under management totalling S$7.5 billion.

“With the reopening of the border with China and the easing of travel restrictions, we are confident of the recovery of the office sector in Hong Kong,” said Wong Mun Hoong, Mapletree’s regional chief executive officer for Australia and North Asia.

The Goldin Financial Global Centre was seized by creditors in 2020 after the developer failed to make a payment on a loan facility.

Goldin and receivers tried dispose of the tower on several occasions, including a provisional agreement to sell it for HK$14.3 billion in 2020, and a tender sale of HK$6.7 billion in September 2022, filings and land records showed.

Goldstone Asset, jointly established by PAG and Mapletree, signed an agreement to buy the tower in late November, Land Registry documents showed.