Hotel Grand Central

[kbl]

Good evening everyone.

The Directors of the Company wish to inform that the issue price of the New Share to be issued
in lieu of the cash amount of the (the “Price Determination Period”) is S$1.266 for each New
Share.
Shareholders not participating in the Scheme will receive the Final and Special Dividends in
cash.
Notices of Election with respect to the Final and Special Dividends will be despatched to
Shareholders on or about 16 June 2015.
The Final Dividend will be paid on or about 20 July 2015.

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<vested><not a call to buy or sell>

[greengiraffe]

Rebuilding Christchurch
1910 words
1 Aug 2015
The Australian Financial Review
AFNR
English

New Zealand When the city was flattened by an earthquake, a institution with Chinese-style authority was put in charge of the rebuild. But this near dictatorial body has polarised its citizens and slowed progress, writes Luke Malpass.

Imagine sitting in your office on George Street, Collins Street or St Georges Terrace in Perth. Count the number of buildings. In the unlikely event you get to 1000, imagine those buildings are gone, replaced by piles of twisted metal and rubble or flattened and turned into a $5-a-day gravel car park. On a cool but sunny February day in Christchurch in 2011, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake made this a reality for what was then New Zealand's second-largest city.

Four and a half years on, what exactly is happening in Christchurch? Well, that depends on where you are. Housing stock in the outer suburbs is back to the level it was pre-quake, and many businesses have relocated to satellite towns. In the CBD, it is another matter. Buildings are finally going up, such as the recently completed bus exchange and a shopping mall made entirely of painted shipping containers, but much of it still looks like downtown Baghdad. The cathedral is part standing/part rubble and there are piles of debris and detritus from recently blown-up buildings.

In the local newspaper The Press (owned by Fairfax, publisher of AFR Weekend), an increasing number of stories ask if this was avoidable and if so, whose fault it is.

Enter the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority. Because rebuilding the city was of such economic importance (and since it is financing much of it), the National-led John Key government created CERA. A government department, CERA would help run the enormous task of not only rebuilding the CBD but regenerating it as a 21st-century city. Its empowering legislation (sometimes jokingly referred to as the Henry VIII legislation) gave it virtual carte blanche over the rebuild, covering 12 city blocks. It has acquired, or agreed to acquire, about 330,000 square metres of land, then direct the rebuild from there.

The rebuild has been crucial to the Key government's economic growth agenda, and it has been one of the four priorities of the government, along with delivering a surplus, improving productivity and competitiveness, and providing better public services. It has generated an enormous amount of economic activity and greatly bolstered New Zealand's headline gross domestic product figures, adding an estimated 1.1 percentage points of its current 2.5 per cent growth rate.

Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce chief Peter Townsend estimates the final bill for the rebuild will be about $45 billion, about $32 billion of which is reinsurance money, so the amount of money that is coming into the city is huge.

"Per capita, it was one of the most expensive events in the history of insurance," he says.

But this extraordinary, war-like effort that is rebuilding Christchurch and giving the New Zealand economy a much-needed lift against the fall in dairy prices, lower terms of trade and a Canterbury drought is being directed out of an office that's attracting a lot of controversy. People wonder whether this authority with near-dictatorial powers is the best way to rebuild a city.

The idea was that CERA could cut through red tape and get things moving, such as zoning, consents, planning and overseeing. By appointing a Chinese-style bureaucracy to make the decisions and direct the process it was thought to be more efficient than working in concert with a local council many believed was not up to the task.

But critics argue the model has failed and point to the success of the private sector in areas out of CERA's control.

"It isn't a model I would have chosen," Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel, a former Labour Party immigration minister, says.

"I would never have chosen a government department."

And although not much has been done visibly, as one might expect in the four and a half years since the disaster, CERA's chief executive John Ombler rattles off a number of impressive headline figures on what's been achieved so far. After all, it's worth remembering the magnitude of the earthquake. There wasn't just one quake - there were 35 that were more than 5 on the Richter scale and more than 5000 aftershocks - and 185 people died.

So no one discounts the enormity of Ombler and his team's task. The horizontal infrastructure program of water pipes and roads is 76 per cent complete. The Earthquake Commission (the national risk insurer) is 96.5 per cent of the way through its work and insurers have settled or resolved 71 per cent of their claims. Almost 100 per cent of Christchurch's hospitality sector is back up and running, although much of it is not in the CBD.

Yet it is notable that progress in the CERA-controlled CBD zone is much slower than elsewhere. Whether that is CERA's fault is a matter for debate.

"From an investment confidence point of view, just as things were starting to stabilise in people's minds, as well as in the ground, there were a couple of big earthquakes in June 2011 and then another big one in December," Ombler says. A former senior public servant who led a review into Australia's Bureau of Statistics, Ombler says although the city was excellently insured, the sheer scale of the earthquakes had a large effect on starting the rebuild.

"That had the effect of not only having an unstable ground, it also had the effect of having an unstable mood. Investment confidence wasn't there. There was uncertainty about the rebuild, and what the building requirements might be," he says.

And he points to the huge task still ahead.

"Until those buildings are down and gone and cleaned up, you can't commence the rebuilding."

Those who question CERA and its effectiveness don't blame personalities or responsibilities. Their beef is with the institution's structure and design.

"I think there was a risk aversion around the amount of government expenditure and a belief you couldn't control that expenditure at arm's length. I think there was a view here in New Zealand that this was unprecedented, but what was really unprecedented was the scale and size of insurance cover," Dalziel says. Her finance spokesman Raf Manji, an affable former Bankers Trust London banker, is blunt in his assessment of CERA.

"We had a council here that probably wasn't competent to deal with the problems, but probably no council would be. You could have had government impose its will on top of the council and had still one single authority," Manji says.

"You've seen what's happened here in Christchurch. The private sector has gone off and developed outside of the reach of the government structure and it's done it really well."

At face value, Manji is correct. Barely outside the CERA-controlled zone in the formerly dumpy suburb of Addington, office blocks, restaurants, bars and eateries have sprung up. It is the same at the south end of Christchurch. Residential housing is being built at pace. Anywhere the private sector has been allowed to make different arrangements, it has done so successfully. Directly across the river from the CERA zone a new, glass-covered curvy Deloitte office has sprung up.

Manji says the institutional structure and lack of clear rules have delayed investment.

Much of the argument revolves around the so-called anchor projects, big-ticket items done by CERA or privately by the council. CERA's only major completion to date has been a bus exchange, and there is still uncertainty around the city's convention centre, which in turn is delaying hotel investment.

'We've had a government structure with all the problems that governments have and it just hasn't been quick enough," Manji says. "It's the nature of government. It's just the way it works."

CERA defends how long the rebuild in the central city has taken.

"You'll hear criticisms and commentary about how slow bits of the rebuild are and there's good reason for that. It's going a lot quicker right now, visibly quicker, and things are coming out of the ground," Ombler says.

Meanwhile, the local economy is humming. The South Island has 3.1 per cent unemployment, while GDP growth in Canterbury is rocketing along at 10.6 per cent. Prime Minister Key told AFR Weekend this week, there was plenty of work still to do in the city but "there's no question Christchurch has been stimulatory [to the economy]. Generally it's been about 1 per cent of GDP each year."

And there's no doubt it is a great place to be in trades or construction. The city is full of workers from Ireland and the Philippines - some estimate there are about 9000 of them.

There are also tales of former Pilbara miners arriving, though they are difficult to find on the ground. Almost everyone seems to be wearing a high-vis vest.

Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce's Townsend says best estimates are that 40 per cent of the rebuild is complete, and that its level will now plateau at a high level for a few years.

Still, walking around Christchurch you are struck by the sparseness of the place. To fill the space that has mostly become $2 to $5-a-day parking, art instalments and displays have been erected to help break up the bleakness, and enormous paintings and murals adorn many exposed walls.

There are so many road cones in the CBD that one becomes desensitised. Temporary wire fencing is everywhere, as well as cranes and scaffolding. The city is eerily quiet but for the constant sound of construction.

And something that doesn't come across in photographs is the unevenness of it all. Roads are bumpy and cracked, and dirt, dust and puddles are everywhere. In short, the place is still a mess.

Fortuitously, because of local insurance competition, most buildings, residential and commercial, have "like for like" or "as new" replacement policies. In practice, this has meant that in some cases an older building worth only $10 million standing was suddenly worth $50 million because of the actual cost of rebuilding it as new. This has, understandably, made cash settlements common.

"I don't know anywhere in the world where so much money has been tipped into such a small and well-insured city," Townsend says. "The insurance industry could not believe they were so exposed to Christchurch."

All this points to the fact that there is actually a lot of money sloshing around Christchurch, ready to be deployed.

There is also a positive feeling in the city about the exciting regeneration to come. There is a large redevelopment around Avon River to make the city more river-facing. Of the edifices that have gone up, there are a lot of glassy, low-slung buildings (no one wants to work in a high-rise now) and a generally clean, Nordic feel.

Yet the earthquake looms large over everything, and as chirpy Filipino construction workers toil away on their sites, you can't help but notice that the frames for these new buildings contain an incredible amount of steel designed to withstand another shock.


Fairfax Media Management Pty Limited

Document AFNR000020150731eb810001e

[greengiraffe]

Aug 18 2015 at 5:45 PM Updated Aug 18 2015 at 7:09 PM

Christchurch rises with a smaller, more liveable city grid

Image of DKO plans for Christchurch's seven-hectare East Frame redevelopment

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by Michael Bleby
Christchurch is erasing a 165-year-old city grid as it rebuilds seven hectares of the former central business district into a residential hub with a smaller blocks.

The $NZ800 million ($711 million) East Frame project, one of several key reconstruction jobs rebuilding the city in the wake of the February 2011 earthquake, will create 940 dwellings on part of central Christchurch.

That eastern side of Christchurch's original square layout was previously occupied by offices, including the Canterbury Television building whose collapse accounted for 115 of the 185 earthquake deaths.

But turning the former business district into a lively and active residential centre is a tough job, said Koos de Keijzer, the principal of DKO Architecture, which with NZ firm Architectus, is redesigning the site for ASX-listed Fletcher Building unit Fletcher Living.

How it was originally: Christchurch's street grid, laid out by Edward Jollie in 1850.
How it was originally: Christchurch's street grid, laid out by Edward Jollie in 1850. Archives New Zealand
"The town centre has gone, so how do you rejuvenate the town centre?" he said.

It's a challenge and an opportunity that city planners across Australia are also grappling with, as they seek to turn town centres more into lively residential centres as well as business hubs, at a time when urban infill and denser living is recognised as a crucial way to curb sprawl. A city such as Melbourne, which made a conscious effort to encourage street-level life and small-scale retail, had the benefit of an existing warren of lanes to use in its so-called "fine grain" strategy. The Victorian capital is still benefiting from this, as seen on Tuesday when it was named – for the fifth time running – the Most Liveable City by The Economist magazine.

"The block is too big, compared with Melbourne. There is much larger segmentation."

But the tragic destruction of much of central Christchurch has created the opportunity for a city layout different from the 1850 grid, permitting a more lively centre. The new residential precincts De Keijzer is designing in the centre of Christchurch will have smaller blocks to encourage walking.

"It's the spaces in between that make a city special," he said. "If the grid's big and the streets are big, that element of surprise is less."

The design that breaks the 7.3-hectare site that touches the Avon River into three separate precincts will also introduce denser living than has been common in New Zealand cities to date, with buildings up to five storeys.

There's little danger in building up again, said Mr De Keijzer's colleague, DKO director David Randerson.

"A lot of the buildings that fell down were not built entirely to code," he said. "The risk in building new buildings is pretty low."

Fletcher Building said construction would take up to nine years and would start in 2017.

While a city such as Adelaide is taking steps to rejuvenate its inner city, Christchurch's presents a challenge, Mr De Keijzer said.

"What's beautiful about Adelaide – the grid or the buildings? I think it's the buildings," he said.

[kbl]

Good afternoon everyone.

Short-term deposits - $268m
NAV - S$1.95

5c cash div xd 9th May 2016

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Hotel Grand Central FH - S$268m
Hotel Chancellor@Orchard LH - S$400m

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<Vested><Not a call to Buy or Sell>

[kbl]

Good evening everyone.

Hotel Grand Central: Sale Of Hotel Grand Chancellor Surfers Paradise, Australia For A$80 Million.

Hotel Grand Central Limited has reached agreement with a third party to sell Hotel Grand Chancellor Surfers Paradise, Australia for the aggregate amount of A$80,000,000.00 by the execution of the Land Contract for A$77,410,547.74 and Business Contract for A$2,589,452.26 respectively. HGCSP, a 408 room hotel, was purchased by HGC in 2010 for the purchase price of A$47.00 million. HGC subsequently spent an additional A$8.75 million including stamp duty and renovation works on the hotel...



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<Vested>

[edragon]

Would be good if a buyer for Hotel Chancellor@Orchard LH can be found.

[cyclone]

Rare occurance though miniscule.

Tan Eng Teong, chairman and controlling shareholder, on 2 June 2016 acquired 10,000 shares @S$1.24 via market transaction.

<vested>

[cyclone]

Higher price.

Tan Eng Teong, chairman and controlling shareholder, on 9 June 2016 acquired 50,000 shares @S$1.2945 per share via market transaction.

[cyclone]

Good evening everyone.

Hotel Grand Central: Sale Of Hotel Grand Chancellor Surfers Paradise, Australia For A$80 Million.

Hotel Grand Central Limited has reached agreement with a third party to sell Hotel Grand Chancellor Surfers Paradise, Australia for the aggregate amount of A$80,000,000.00 by the execution of the Land Contract for A$77,410,547.74 and Business Contract for A$2,589,452.26 respectively. HGCSP, a 408 room hotel, was purchased by HGC in 2010 for the purchase price of A$47.00 million. HGC subsequently spent an additional A$8.75 million including stamp duty and renovation works on the hotel...



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<Vested>

Hotel Grand Central Limited wishes to announce that all conditions precedent in the Sale and Purchase Agreement to sell the Hotel Grand Chancellor Surfers Paradise, Australia have been fulfilled and the sale has been completed on 13 July 2016.

[kbl]

Good morning everyone.

$85m Grand Central Building Christchurch.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/busines...ristchurch

1Q results
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*Rental income from investment properties 2,327----------3,468
Note 1 Rental income from investment properties increased in Q1 2017 mainly due to the revenue contribution from Grand Central Building, Christchurch which started recognising rental income from Jan 2017

EPS 1.2c
Nav $1.99
$343m cash
Loans and borrowings $131m

<Vested><Not a call to Buy or Sell>