Fragrance Group

[pianist]

anyone has a quick reply on when is the odd lot gph shares start trading?

[opmi]

anyone has a quick reply on when is the odd lot gph shares start trading?

around 20 May, as per Circular..

[pianist]

thanks, circular said indicative..guess a formal announcement will come soon

[greengiraffe]

Singapore brothers reach for the sky
BEN WILMOT THE AUSTRALIAN JUNE 17, 2014 12:00AM
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TWO of Singapore’s wealthiest brothers are competing to build Melbourne’s tallest apartment tower.

The contest was kicked off in January when Koh Wee Seng, the younger sibling of hotelier Koh Wee Meng, forged into the Australian market.

His Singapore-listed Aspial Corp unveiled plans to build Australia’s second-tallest tower behind the famed Surfers Paradise landmark Q1 Tower. His company snapped up the site in the Southbank district known as the Australia 108 project. It can accommodate a 312m tower, making it the city’s tallest.

Wee Seng was ranked as Singapore’s 40th richest person by Forbes magazine, due to his 75 per cent stake in Aspial, the country’s only listed jewellery retailer with a sideline in property development, giving him a fortune of $US450 million.

At the time, he said it was “a groundbreaking milestone for Aspial to play a part in the development of the tallest skyscraper in Melbourne, which will soon lend its compelling presence to the skyline’’.

Singapore hotelier Koh Wee Meng made his biggest play in local property last week. His Singapore-listed Fragrance Group struck a deal to purchase the 24-storey 555 Collins Street building in Melbourne and flagged plans for a mixed-use ­development. Fragrance bought the building from developer Harry Stamoulis for $78m in a deal brokered by CBRE’s Mark Wizel and Josh Rutman.

Stamoulis had tried teaming up with Daniel Grollo’s Grocon to develop an office tower on the site, but his earlier plans, for a 404m building that would have even topped Q1, generated most excitement.

Many doubted it would be built and Fragrance can now breathe life into the proposal given its financial heft. Wee Meng’s wealth was estimated at $US1.3 billion by Forbes. Although his tower will be ­behind the timing of the Australia 108 project, it could end up being the taller of the two.

[opmi]

Melbourne City seems to have very high plot ratio and high height restriction.

[greengiraffe]

Melbourne’s Savoy turns beer into Fragrance
PUBLISHED: 1 HOUR 12 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 1 HOUR 12 MINUTES AGO
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NICK LENAGHAN
One of Melbourne’s best-known CBD sites, the old Savoy Tavern on Bourke Street, standing on one of the city’s busiest corners, has been sold to Fragrance Group, a Singapore-listed hotel and ­residential developer which has now acquired three Australian sites in quick succession.

A newcomer to the Australian market, Fragrance has outlaid $126.5 million in the past six weeks to purchase two Melbourne CBD sites and a Hobart property.

Controlled by property tycoon Koh Wee Meng, Fragrance’s latest acquisition is the 1800-square-metre site on the corner of Bourke and Spencer streets, purchased for $44.5 million from BRW Rich-lister Mark Rowsthorn.

In 2005, Mr Rowsthorn paid $9.9 million for the site, which was once part of a portfolio of properties held by the Nauru government.

The old Savoy Tavern, a single-storey 1970s-era brown brick-veneer building, stood derelict on the site for almost 20 years until Mr Rowsthorn returned the building to its former use as a pub in March this year.

It is understood the Savoy Tavern will continue operating until its new owner begins redeveloping.

“Subject to obtaining all regulatory approvals, the group intends to redevelop the property into a high-rise mixed-use development,” Fragrance Group said.

Executive chairman Koh Wee Meng was once dubbed the Geylang King, according to Forbes, in a reference to Fragrance’s origins developing hotels in Singapore’s red light district.

His brother is Koh Wee Seng, who heads Singapore-listed Aspial, which acquired a Southbank project in January for $42 million with approval for a 312-metre tower.

The Savoy Tavern deal was brokered off-market by Colliers agent Matt Stagg.

“In addition to the buoyant high-rise residential apartment market, we are also finding that offshore developers are seeking to incorporate exciting new hotels and retail concepts into their developments,” Mr Stagg said.

Last week, Fragrance flagged a mixed-use development after snapping up an office tower at 555 Collins Street owned by developer Harry Stamoulis for $78 million, in a deal brokered by CBRE’s Mark Wizel and Josh Rutman.

[greengiraffe]

Fragrance Group sniffs out a new opportunity in the west
KYLAR LOUSSIKIAN THE AUSTRALIAN JULY 12, 2014 12:00AM

KOH Weng Meng’s Fragrance Group has purchased a development site in Perth for $40 million, less than a month after the Singaporean group snapped up two properties in Melbourne.

The property, at 374-396 Murray Street, was previously linked to Grocon, which had been ­expected to redevelop the site.

The 4926sq m parcel contains a street-level car park, and with adjoining single and two-storey commercial buildings had development approval for two towers, a 14-storey commercial building with 11 office floors, and a 32-­storey residential tower with 286 apartments and ground-floor retail space.

In a statement to the Singapore Stock Exchange, Fragrance said it expected to use the site for a mixed-use office development. The Weekend Australian understands the development application has lapsed but will be considered by the Development Assessment Panel next week.

Fragrance has expanded its Australian holdings rapidly. It bought 555 Collins Street in Melbourne from developer Harry Stamoulis for $78m last month and also purchased the old Savoy Tavern site on the corner of Bourke Street and Spencer Street in Melbourne from rich-lister Mark Rowsthorn for $44.5m.

The Murray Street site will be Fragrance’s first development in Perth.

A recent Knight Frank report on Perth’s office market found vacancy rates were at 9 per cent, a three-year high, but gross supply to the market was at its lowest since 2008, with stock withdrawals late last year resulting in a decline in total office stock, the first decline since 2007.

[greengiraffe]

Next Stop, Australia
Jessica Tan
650 words
18 Aug 2014
Forbes Asia
FBGL
English
Copyright 2014. Forbes Media LLC.
Even while on a holiday to Tasmania last September Singaporean property developer Koh Wee Meng could not help himself.

"It so happened that I came across this plot of land while driving along, seeing a 'For Sale' signboard. After talking to the agent, I came to realize it's cheap," says the man who notably built up parts of Singapore's Geylang district and has timed the city-state's property cycles well enough to secure a $1.55 billion net worth. "For A$4 million [the price of two three-bedroom condo apartments on the fringe of his home city] you can own 2,000 square meters."

As it turned out, that short stay led Koh's Fragrance Group to its maiden foray abroad. Soon after picking up that acreage along a main drag of Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, Fragrance acquired two other mixed-use parcels in Melbourne and one in Perth.

Apartments, offices and retail are planned for the four sites, which are all in central business districts. Koh says he's on the lookout for additional acquisitions in Australia.

Koh has done more than 100 projects in Singapore since 1992 but has tailed off. He also controls its second-largest budget hotel chain, Fragrance, operated under Global Premium Hotels (GPH), a Fragrance Group unit that was recently spun off.

He and his wife own 85% of Fragrance Group and 65% of GPH; both trade on the Singapore stock exchange.

A well-timed entry into Australia is Koh's best shot at making his next billion. Developers in land-scarce Singapore have faced rounds of government measures in recent years to cool price run-ups. "You can't run fast like in the past," he observes. "In the past perhaps you can sell 100 units within one or two months. Now, to sell 100 units, you take nine months." Koh believes conditions "will continue to be tough."

Several Singapore builders have rushed into Iskandar, the rising Malaysian metropolis just a 30-minute drive north of Singapore, while others have ventured into Vietnam and Myanmar. But Koh thinks that, along with peers like Ho Bee Land and Hiap Hoe, he is trying a more conservative stretch. "Australia is a safe country," he says. "I prefer a country where the infrastructure is in place and where there's political stability. I want to go to a place where the security is good. I can work safely; I can walk safely."

Mark Wizel, director of the Melbourne sales team at CBRE and the agent for one of Fragrance's purchases, says there's a historic undersupply of apartments there in the face of a "strong underlying international student population and the strong net migration coming to Melbourne out of Asia."

Koh says all four buys in Australia totaled $156 million and were financed entirely by Fragrance Group, without bank loans. He says that one of the properties, along Collins Street in Melbourne, will be developed into a skyscraper, subject to approval.

"Over the next 18 months you should be able to see some sales and construction activity," says Koh, adding that all developments "will move at one go." Result: "Maybe it will take 3 to 4 years to complete." GPH, his hotel business, may enter the Australian market, too.

Koh moved from a family jewelry business into property development during Singapore's early 1990s boom. He's maneuvered in the home market since. During the last upswing his residential projects got bigger and bolder and GPH began to enter the midtier hotel business with its Parc Sovereign brand.

Business was brisk right until early 2013. That's when he braked again, tendering for only one plot of land in Singapore, after going on a billion-dollar buying spree the year before. "You must never, never eat until the tail end," says he.


Forbes Media LLC

Document FBGL000020140725ea8i00009

[greengiraffe]

Er how come bought into the areas with huge supply coming onstream???

CBD first for Singapore’s Fragrance Group
THE AUSTRALIAN SEPTEMBER 05, 2014 12:00AM

Sarah Danckert

Property Reporter
Melbourne
SINGAPORE’S Fragrance Group is planning to build a ­90-storey tower in the Melbourne CBD on the site of the recently redeveloped Savoy Tavern, which is expected to have an end value of $700 million.

Fragrance, controlled by property tycoon Koh Wee Meng, has applied for a permit to build a single tower, featuring about 1000 apartments and 280 hotel rooms. Located on the corner of Bourke and Spencer streets, the tower would sit opposite Spencer Street station and be within reach of Melbourne’s Docklands.

The development would mark Fragrance’s first project in Melbourne. The Singapore-listed company purchased the 1800sq m site, which is currently home to the popular Savoy Tavern, this year from former Asciano boss Mark Rowsthorn for $44.5m. He in turn had purchased the site in 2005 for $9.9m when it then held a permit for a 47-storey office tower.

Fragrance has been growing its presence in Australia in recent months by purchasing 555 Collins Street in Melbourne from developer Harry Stamoulis for $78m in May.

And then in July, purchasing a development site at 374-396 Murray Street in Perth for $40m.

The 4926sq m parcel in central Perth contains a street-level car park, and with adjoining single and two-storey commercial buildings has development approval for two towers — a 14-storey commercial building with 11 office floors, and a 32-storey residential tower with 286 apartments and ground-floor retail space.

[greengiraffe]

http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/Announce...eID=315333

I m loss for words... spinoffs... without a track record... if they can pull off with believers, I think any Tom, Dick and Mickey can list on ASX...

No vested interests
GG