The insolvency administrator of a nearly 41,800 square meter residential property in the eastern district of Hong Kong Island, which once belonged to the troubled Chinese property developer Agile Group Holdings, offered the property for sale by tender on Monday.
According to Savills, the sole agent for the sale, Agile paid a total of around HK$3.3 billion (US$423 million) in 2017 and 2022 for the two sites at issue in the tender – 992-998 King’s Road and 2-16 Mount Parker Road in Quarry Bay.
The plot area is approximately 4,600 m² and offers a maximum gross floor area of approximately 41,400 m². The deadline for expressions of interest is October 2nd at 12:00 noon.
“Upon completion, the project is expected to offer over 500 residential units and more than 190 parking spaces,” said Tommy Chan, senior director of investment at Savills. Given the tight supply of new housing in Hong Kong Island’s urban areas and the site’s proximity to Quarry Bay subway station and the Taikoo Place office complex, the project is likely to be attractive to both owner-occupiers and investors, he added.
According to the 2023 annual report, Agile held 100 percent of the shares in the project as of December 31.
“The group has two high-quality real estate projects,” the report said, listing the King’s Road and Mount Parker Road sites, as well as a project on Eastbourne Road in Kowloon Tong.
Last year, Agile paid HK$966 million for Dragon Court, a 44-unit building at 6 Eastbourne Road, in a forced sale to redevelop the building. The company holds an 82 percent stake in the project, according to its annual report.
The 115-square-metre, three-bedroom apartment fetched HK$14.3 million (about EUR112 million), compared with HK$31 million (about EUR112 million in 2018) when the city’s property market was still booming, according to a broker at Centaline, which completed the deal.
The price per square foot of HK$11,525 was about 15 percent below the prevailing market price.
According to the commercial register, the property was acquired in 2018 by Joint Smart Development, of which Chen is a director.
Agile has acquired a third of the 33 residential units in Hamburg Villa and the developer had expressed a desire to acquire the entire building. In 2018, Agile bought five apartments in Hamburg Villa for HK$73 million. Last December, the developer owned a 23 percent stake in the project.
Agile said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that given liquidity pressures, the company “will not be able to meet all payment obligations under its offshore debt.”
Luk was looking for an asset worth HK$500 million, the source said.
Agile also took out a two-year loan of HK$894 million with an annual interest rate of 20 percent in June 2022 as part of a plan to reduce its debt burden, which at the time stood at 59.49 billion yuan ($8.3 billion).
According to the sources, the company wanted to refinance its HK$894 million facility, using the residential properties on Mount Parker Road and King’s Road as collateral.
Agile’s total debt, including bank loans, senior notes and mainland Chinese corporate bonds, had fallen to 53.55 billion yuan at the end of December 2023. The company reported a loss of 13.8 billion yuan for 2023.
