TA plans RM596mil projects this year

Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel in Sydney is owned by TA Global Bhd.

TA Global Bhd is building up its presence as a more robust property player with developments and investment assets in both the local and foreign markets.

The reorganisation of its parent, TA Enterprise Bhd, in 2009 that involved the disposal of TA Enterprise's property assets to TA Global and the listing of TA Global in the Bursa Malaysia Main Market, has paved the way for the group to flex its muscles in the property arena.


Datin Alicia Tiah

TA Global is now a 74%-owned subsidiary of financial services group TA Enterprise.

According to TA Enterprise managing director cum chief executive officer Datin Alicia Tiah, contribution from TA Enterprise's property subsidiary is set to grow with the higher number of project launches these one to two years.

In property development, projects worth RM596mil in the Klang Valley, Australia and Canada, are among the projects scheduled for launch this year. Last year, only RM180mil worth of projects were launched.

The latest launch is that of Azelia Residence @ Damansara Avenue in Sri Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, comprising 250 condominium units with estimated gross development value of RM210mil. The launch today is only limited to 43 low-rise residences and 58 high-rise units worth some RM120mil.

Tiah says Damansara Avenue is a 48 acre master planned development with a balanced mix of signature office suites, lifestyle retail and alfresco styled F&B outlets, corporate office towers, a business class hotel and lifestyle retail mall.

Launch last August, it is targeted for completion in 10 years.

Located within the growth corridor of Desa Park City, Mutiara Damansara and Sungei Buloh, she says some RM100mil will be expended to build dedicated infrastructure accesses for the development.

Other project launches coming up in the third or fourth quarter this year will be condominium projects in Dutamas and Cheras in Kuala Lumpur.

The Dutamas project will feature residences of between 1,500 sq ft and 1,700 sq ft while the project in Taman Permata, Cheras, will be smaller residences of 500 sq ft to 1300 sq ft.

TA Global is also planning to launch its two overseas projects in Canada and Australia this year.

The C$170mil Gardens project in Richmond, British Columbia in Canada featuring 470 apartments and about 70,000 sq ft of retail cum office space, is earmarked for launch around June or July.

The Little Bay project in Sydney comprising townhouses and courtyard homes with estimated GDV of A$600mil, is for launch in the fourth quarter this year.

Tiah, who is also a non-independent non-executive director of TA Global, says the property group is also enlarging its base in the property investment and hospitality arena.

A number of its upcoming projects in Kuala Lumpur will comprise mixed commercial projects.

Its pipeline of new projects include the TA3 and TA4 development which will feature twin 50-storey blocks of mixed development comprising a hotel tower and a residential tower with retail podium.

Located on 2.47 acres in Jalan P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur, the project, targeted for launch in 2013, will have an estimated GDV of RM1.38bil.

Another commercial project in the drawing board is the Nova Square development on 3.075 acres at the corner of Jalan Imbi and Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur.

The project, scheduled for launch in 2014, will comprise three office and residential towers and have GDV of RM1.35bil.

In the hospitality sector, TA Global has made a number of hotel acquisitions in recent years.

Tiah says the hotel assets were acquired during the bad economic times and the group managed to get quite good deals for them.

Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel in Sydney was bought in 1997 for A$120mil; the deal for Aava Whistler Hotel in Vancouver, Canada, was concluded in 2008 for C$35mil; Swissotel Merchant Court in Singapore was purchased in 2009 for S$260mil; and Westin Melbourne was also bought in 2009 for A$160mil.

Its latest hotel acquisition was concluded on April 6. It paid US$60.75mil for Swissotel Kunshan, a five-star hotel in the city centre of Kunshan in Jiansu province, China.

Tiah says TA Global is mulling plans to set up a hospitality real estate investment trust to unlock the value of its five hotel assets that have a combined asset value of more than RM2bil.

She adds that the plan is still preliminary and will only materialise when the timing is right. TA Global's property investment assets include two office buildings the 37-storey Menara TA One in the vicinity of Kuala Lumpur City Centre, and Wisma TA in Petaling Jaya. It also owns the 24-storey Fortis BC Centre located in the central business district of Vancouver, Canada.

By The Star

St Regis KL aims to be rates leader

KUALA LUMPUR: Luxury hotel St Regis Kuala Lumpur may very well be the rate leader in Kuala Lumpur when it opens its doors in 2014.

"We expect to see St Regis as a market leader from a rate stand point ... although not necessarily from an occupancy stand point," Starwood's regional vice-president Southeast Asia Chuck Abbott said.



"It would be great to see rates in KL reach RM1,000 (per night), which would be in line with other destinations for luxury hotels like St Regis," he told Business Times in an interview.

The St Regis here is expected to open in 2014. Currently, rate leaders in Kuala Lumpur rake in an average room rate (ARR) of between RM550 and RM650.

St Regis competitive set in countries across the region includes the Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton, Mandarin Oriental, Park Hyatt, The Peninsula and The Raffles.

According to Abbott, who is also responsible for Singapore and Indonesia, the St Regis in Singapore and Bali are both leaders in their competitive set.

The St Regis here, located in KL Sentral, is a RM1.2 billion development that will include a 208-room hotel and 160 units of apartments. The lower floors of the 48-storey building would be the hotel portion.

St Regis hotel rooms are expected to be a minimum of 60 sq m and its largest suite will measure 300 sq m.

The residences, meanwhile, which is yet to be launched, will have one bedroom up to four bedroom units. There will also be two penthouses.

Starwood has a management contract with the owner One IFC Sdn Bhd. The shareholders of One IFC are CMY Capital (60 per cent), Malaysian Resources Corp Bhd (30 per cent) and Jitra Kerkasa Sdn Bhd (10 per cent).

Meanwhile, when asked about Starwood's performance in Malaysia, Abbott said that year to date Malaysia continues to show solid growth in occupancy and a double-digit growth in revenue per available room (revpar).

Revpar multiplies the hotel's average daily rate with its occupancy.

Earlier this month, Starwood announced that it has signed up with Dijaya Corp Bhd to manage a W hotel in Jalan Ampang, KL.

The W Hotel will have 150 rooms and will be part of the 50-storey hotel-cum-residential block being built where the Bok House used to sit. It will open in 2016.

With this addition, Starwood will operate a total of 13 hotels in Malaysia in the next five years.

Starwood hotels in Kuala Lumpur now include Westin, Le Meridien and Sheraton Imperial. Starwood also has a 49 per cent stake in Sheraton Imperial.

In Langkawi, it operates the Sheraton Langkawi, The Westin Langkawi Resort & Spa, The Andaman Langkawi and a Luxury Collection. The Four Points by Sheraton Langkawi Resort is scheduled to open end-October 2011.

In East Malaysia, it has the Le Meridien Kota Kinabalu and Four Points by Sheraton Kuching, and will be opening later this year the Four Points by Sheraton Sandakan.

By Business Times

Simple basics to sustainability

It is true that words like “going green” and “sustainable” carry much weight these days and many times they have been exploited by various quarters as tools for some personal agenda or to promote product sales.

Marketers from various “walks” of industries have benefited substantially from the green and sustainable pitches, and no wonder we have been bombarded with these words everywhere we go.

To be green or sustainable compliant does not just mean that some special methods or ingredients are used in the making of a product. It goes deeper than that.

I personally believe that it actually applies to every facets of our believe system, as well as the way we live and do things.

Simply put, it means the human race must re-learn to survive as minimalist and accept that the most basic way of life one without exploiting Mother Nature is the most natural, green and sustainable way.

The ongoing climatic and environmental changes are hot topics these days, not because it is trendy but because people are being affected one way or another. Most of us must have noticed that the once benign morning sun is scotching hot even way before the clock strikes noon and thunderstorms are happening more regularly and are louder.

While some parts of the world are facing severe drought, flooding has become a regular occurrence in some countries.

Cyclones, hurricanes and earthquakes are also striking more regularly causing lost of lives and major damages to property.

Doing our bit to arrest further decadence in our environment should be made everyone's duty and not merely a lip service. Among the top priorities in the list of “to dos” include cutting back on the usage of electricity, water, paper and food consumption.

As weather conditions deteriorate further and temperature rises, these items will become rare commodities, and it pays to preserve them by minimising their usage.

Although we have to pay tribute to inventors like Thomas Edison for inventing the light bulb which revolutionise the way people live, we should not succumb to the mental siege of “can't do without electricity or electronic devices”.

Instead of clamouring for the bright lights, we should instead promote the habit of seeking out more “light out” opportunities with just the stars in the sky for company.

Many of us who are from the “Baby Boomers” generation, should remember our school camping trips and those treasured moments of sleeping out under the glittering stars a rare opportunity worth savouring by all ages.

Reminiscing those simple luxuries reminds me of an article which I have read in the National Geographic that stressed on the side effects of over-exposure to too much bright lights in buildings and “dazzling, almost blinding” electronic screens and billboards.

It has been found that these light can be detrimental to our health and affect the concentration of road users, including pedestrians and drivers.

Those who live near brightly-lit buildings have been found to be sleep deprived and affected by sleep disorders. So, don't be too distraught if there is suddenly a blackout in your neighbourhood as it could be a blessing in disguise to catch up with one's sleep.

Of course, the way our houses and work places are designed and built will be a major factor when it comes to rating how environment friendly and sustainable they will be. To qualify as green and sustainable, buildings should be able to function no matter what.

Why do we need to depend on air conditioning to cool the building whereas natural ventilation, big open windows and double volume ceilings should be able to do the trick?

As for lowering the water bill, remember those times when our elders collected rain water in buckets during heavy downpours to be used for watering plants later? Likewise, water used to wash rice grains is believed to be natural fertilisers and was collected for plant watering.

If more “out of the box” designs and features are drawn up for our property schemes, they should fare better in the green and environment index.

Another sustainable issue I believe is the one concerning the over dependence on maids by Malaysian families these days.

The “can't do without a maid” syndrome will turn out to be unsustainable in the near future. This is already happening with maids from some countries as demand outstrips supply, leading to higher agency fees and wages.

The sustainable solution will be to draw up a duty roster and get every member of the family to put in their fair share for the upkeep of the household.

Deputy news editor Angie Ng's food for thought to promote sustainable and functioning families avoid favouritism and promote more spontaneous two-way interaction and communication between parents and children.

By The Star

Will RON97 Price Fall In Future?

Previously, our government announced that the price of RON97 will be floated in accordance to the crude oil price and adjustment will be done per month basis. They also justified heavily that the subsidy will be cut so that the saving can be used for other more useful project for country development. However, this is not followed tightly. This is because RON97 had not experience any changes even though the oil price had increase more than 4% (from US$100.29 to US$104.35) last month.

Based on the historical chart, I would say that the weighted average of oil prices for beginning of every month is higher than the previous month in this year, given that oil price were hovering at the upper levels. For our RON97 prices to come down, the market prices need to stay low long enough to make the impact. This is because short 1-day or 2-days dips cannot make any difference if the prices keep on rebounding the next day.

Anyhow, we can wait and see what’re the actions will be taken by our government when the crude price further down in future. I believe that the political situation in the Middle East will be settled down very soon.

Bank Negara raises key rate to 3%, more hikes seen

It raises its key policy rate by 25 basis points to 3 percent to cope with rising inflation in a move signalling more rate hikes to come.