ERA Realty sold for over $100m

[AlphaQuant]

The Republic's biggest real estate agency ERA Realty Network has been sold for over $100 million to Indonesian private equity firm Northstar Group, months after owner Harry Chua put it on the market.
The price is shy of the $150 million that Mr Harry Chua's Hersing Corporation is said to have asked when it put up for sale the master franchise rights to the ERA name in Asia-Pacific.
Sources said that the final touches to the deal are still being added, but the sale will include Hersing's Singapore franchise rights to Coldwell Banker, which is currently a dormant business here.
Both the ERA and Coldwell Banker brands are owned by US real estate brokerage Realogy Holdings Corp. In Singapore, ERA employs over 5,000 agents - making it the biggest agency by number of agents - and handles billions of dollars worth of deals annually, which account for the bulk of Hersing's profit.

[camelking]

Maybe Mr Harry Chua is of the view that property market will be coming down very soon....
I am sure he knows the market more than most....

[KopiKat]

...sold for over $100 million to Indonesian private equity firm Northstar Group...

Same group who bought over the Neratel controlling stake... but don't see any synergy for Neratel unless all agents have to start carrying some payment device...

[Nick]

I don't think Northstar is exclusively a holding company for Neratel. It is a private equity group with numerous investments. This could be an investment unrelated to its stake in Neratel though I could be wrong. It recently divested its stake in an Indonesian bank.

Northstar Pacific Partners has agreed to buy a controlling 50.05% stake in Nera Telecommunications from power conversion specialist Eltek and is offering to buy the entire company for S$177.3 million ($145 million). This is the Indonesian GP's first foray into the Singapore market.

http://www.avcj.com/avcj/news/2225885/no...unications

While the new rules have hit DBS's and Rabobank's plans, some deals have gone through in Indonesia recently. In May this year, Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. said that it agreed to pay about US$1.52 billion in stages for a 40% stake in Indonesian lender PT Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional, BTPN.JK +1.70% mostly from U.S. private-equity company TPG and its Indonesian partner Northstar Pacific Partners.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...04886.html

[felixleong]

good time to cash out and live like a king

[KopiKat]

I don't think Northstar is exclusively a holding company for Neratel. It is a private equity group with numerous investments. This could be an investment unrelated to its stake in Neratel though I could be wrong. It recently divested its stake in an Indonesian bank.

Northstar Pacific Partners has agreed to buy a controlling 50.05% stake in Nera Telecommunications from power conversion specialist Eltek and is offering to buy the entire company for S$177.3 million ($145 million). This is the Indonesian GP's first foray into the Singapore market.

http://www.avcj.com/avcj/news/2225885/no...unications

While the new rules have hit DBS's and Rabobank's plans, some deals have gone through in Indonesia recently. In May this year, Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. said that it agreed to pay about US$1.52 billion in stages for a 40% stake in Indonesian lender PT Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional, BTPN.JK +1.70% mostly from U.S. private-equity company TPG and its Indonesian partner Northstar Pacific Partners.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...04886.html

Most likely, it's from monies raised last year for their Fund III - US$820m. Extracts from an old news,

The firm has $1.2 billion in assets under management and last year raised Indonesia’s biggest ever private equity fund of $820 million. Around 15 percent to 20 percent of that new fund was earmarked for potential investments outside Indonesia.


More on the Indonesian co-founder, Patrick Walujo of Northstar Pacific Partners,
http://www.avcj.com/avcj/interview/22552...c-partners

Interesting extract on his links for one of the deals...

Family ties

What makes Tiputra particularly interesting is its ownership and, by extension, the reach of Northstar's founders into the Indonesian business elite. The company is run by Theodore Rachmat - who is also Walujo's father-in-law - and Benny Subianto, two of the country's wealthiest individuals. Both men were formerly senior executives at Astra and the way in which their careers interlink with domestic business success stories speaks volumes for the value of relationships in deal-making.

Rachmat's uncle, William Soeryadjaya, founded Astra and Soeryadjaya's son Edwin also worked there and went on to set up Saratoga Capital with Sandiaga Uno. Alongside Subianto and Garibaldi Thohir, son of MochamadThohir, another Astra founder, they comprised the five-man team that created Adaro.

"Obviously it is a useful thing to have," Walujo says of his family connection to Rachmat. "He is a man of high reputation and he has a strong network in Indonesia. We have no direct economic ties - he has not invested a single dollar in our funds - but being associated with him definitely helps."

[CityFarmer]

News update...

PE firm Northstar leads buyout of Singapore’s biggest property broker ERA

Northstar Group, a private equity firm owned by Indonesian investor Patrick Walujo, has led a management buyout of Singapore’s biggest property broker, ERA Real Estate, its second major deal in Singapore in less than a year and a sign of growing interest in the city’s real estate market.

Blackstone and Affinity officials were not immediately available to comment. ERA is the market leader in the real estate broking business in Singapore with more than 5,100 sales agents, a statement said.

Singapore, one of Asia’s major financial centres, is a popular destination for the world’s wealthy due to its minimal taxes, low crime rate and cosmopolitan environment. Private equity firms remain keen on the market despite government efforts to cool private home prices that have risen more than 60 percent since mid-2009, largely due to low interest rates.

The Northstar-led group is paying around $130 million to purchase ERA from Hersing Corp, a source familiar with the deal told Reuters. Northstar did not disclose the price.

http://www.theedgesingapore.com/the-dail...r-era.html

[CityFarmer]

Listing amid "ice-age" of property markets in the region?

New owners of ERA’s S’pore franchise eye stock listing

SINGAPORE — Private equity firm Northstar Group, which has led a management buyout of the ERA Real Estate franchise here, said yesterday it aims to list the property brokerage on the Singapore Exchange within the next two to three years, moves that signal growing interest in the city’s real estate market.

If successful, it would be the first listing by a real estate brokerage in the city, a spokesperson from the Singapore Exchange confirmed.

http://www.todayonline.com/business/new-...ck-listing

[em2nre5u]

Isnt HSR already listed on Catalist? So ERA would not be the 1st listing of a real estate brokerage in Singapore...