http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/...r-20140607
PUBLISHED JUNE 07, 2014
From 'white knight' to Reit grower
Heng Fai Enterprises is seeing results from its first two Reits
BYLEE MEIXIAN
leemx@sph.com.sg @LeeMeixianBT
The company is still a family business, with the senior Mr Chan setting the company's macro direction, his son Tony (left) executing these ideas, and a younger son serving as COO and CIO. - PHOTO: YEN MENG JIN
Singapore
THE days of swooping in to rescue and turn around troubled companies through drastic corporate restructuring are over for Hong Kong-listed Heng Fai Enterprises.
The company, which most recently washed its hands of Singapore-listed SingHaiyi by selling it to low-profile Chinese tycoon Gordon Tang, told The Business Times that its transformation from a compulsive "white knight" to a dedicated real estate investment trust (Reit) manager has already borne its first fruit.
Its first two Reits, American Housing Reit (AHR) and Global Medical Reit (GMR), with US single-family homes and healthcare facilities as their respective assets, have both taken off; by FY15, they will migrate from the over-the-counter bulletin board to the Nasdaq mainboard.
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/...y-20140607
PUBLISHED JUNE 07, 2014
SingHaiyi eyeing more distressed US property
BYLEE MEIXIAN
leemx@sph.com.sg @LeeMeixianBT
HONG KONG-listed Heng Fai Enterprises may have guided SingHaiyi, previously a struggling interior fit-out firm, into Singapore's property development scene in 2006 and helped its market cap to grow hundred-fold to about $400 million in the immediate years that followed, but Heng Fai's exit last year also left it in the lurch, saddled with a portfolio of residential projects amid government measures to quell property speculation.
Although three of its four projects have sold well, sales at one - the 56-unit freehold CosmoLoft in Balestier - have been slow with only 10 per cent sold. This led SingHaiyi to record an impairment of $10.5 million for FY2014 after the company compared its sales and selling prices to other projects in the vicinity.
In a recent interview, SingHaiyi's management told The Business Times that more than just diversifying out of residential projects into the more resilient commercial space - evident from its taking of a 20 per cent stake in TripleOne Somerset earlier this year - the Catalist-quoted real estate firm is increasingly focusing on purchasing distressed properties in the US.
For FY2014, SingHaiyi's US operations accounted for $11.8 million (versus nothing for FY2013) or one-fifth of the group's revenue, mainly from the sale of units at its Vietnam Town commercial condominium in San Jose, California, as well as rental revenue from its Tri-County Mall in Cincinnati, Ohio.