I-Bhd’s Deputy Chairman Datuk Eu Hong Chew revealed that they plan to target buyers from other countries in regards to their 8Kia Peng project in Kuala Lumpur as sales to Chinese buyers have been impacted by Beijing’s restrictions on capital outflow, reported the Sun Daily.
At present, take-up in the condominium is only 10 percent even though it is 17 percent complete. The company was originally depending on institutional buyers, particularly from China, but their commitments have been derailed by funding issues due to the Central Government’s capital controls.
“The current funding restriction from China has affected sales. We are relooking at the sales and marketing plan to go back to the market more aggressively in the second half of this year,” he said during the firm’s annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday (3 May).
Nevertheless, Eu highlighted that I-Bhd has sufficient resources to finish 8Kia Peng and demand still exists. As such, it is not considering a fire sale despite getting offers for a collective purchase at a discount.
“8Kia Peng was developed with a view of targeting the international community, working with the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme. At that time, we had very significant interest from China. If there was something that we didn’t do very well, it was that we focused a lot on that particular market segment.”
“Now that the segment has not been so encouraging, we have to go back and start all over again with a different market segment. But it is still focused on the international community,” he explained.
During the launch of 8Kia Peng in March 2016, 70 percent of the buyers hailed from Singapore, China and Hong Kong. However, Beijing restricted cash outflows near the end of the year to stabilise the yuan and bolster its dollar reserve.
Meanwhile, the developer is bullish that it will record a double-digit growth in revenue from property development this year. It is also confident of generating RM500 million in revenue per annum from this business by 2018.
This is because its unbilled sales have already reached nearly RM600 million, said Eu in addition to the properties available for sale in Shah Alam valued at RM300 million and the upcoming projects with a total gross development value (GDV) of RM8 billion over the next decade.
“The RM500 million per year is not a big issue because if you add up the pipeline, unbilled sales and so on, we have easily more than RM1.5 billion of properties,” noted Eu.
In particular, sales at its i-City project in Shah Alam stand at RM300 million per annum and may even hit RM400 million this year. The development is expected to take another 10 to 15 years to be complete.
The company is also planning to launch the RM123 million Hill 10 Residence in mid-2017, while the RM230 million smart office and RM559 million Converge will be unveiled in 2018.
“We are now working on plans for 2019 onwards including a number of high rise developments comprising a five-star hotel, medical hub, institution of higher learning and one tower for senior citizens. These are still at the design stage,” he said, adding that these projects have a combined GDV of around RM4.4 billion.
Image sourced from I-Bhd
For more information on new homes, check out PropertyGuru’s New Property Launches and Project Reviews.
