CDL, Hong Leong top land bank ranking
CDL, Hong Leong top land bank ranking
They have an estimated 4,215 units; Chinese developers also muscling in
Published on Mar 07, 2014
By Melissa Tan
HE MAY not command quite as many spare hectares as he once did but the man dubbed "Kwek Land Bank" still sits atop the charts when it comes to property developers' stock in trade.
Property veteran Kwek Leng Beng's City Developments (CDL) and its parent Hong Leong Holdings have the biggest land bank among developers in Singapore, a study by consultancy DTZ for The Straits Times has found.
This year's land bank rankings also reflect Chinese developers' growing participation in Singapore's state land tenders, noted DTZ Singapore research head Lee Lay Keng.
CDL and Hong Leong kicked off this year with an estimated 4,215 units in their combined land bank. They retained their No.1 spot from last year, where they had an estimated 6,383 units.
Mr Kwek has been vocal about the difficulties that property developers face in replenishing their land banks.
He said at CDL's full-year results briefing last month that developers who buy private plots are under pressure to push them out quickly, due to qualifying certificate rules that give developers up to five years to finish building a project and two more years to sell all the units.
Developers later have to pay top dollar to replenish their land banks at state land tenders but may be unable to move units owing to a softening market, he said.
The runner-up this year, UOL, was a distant second with an estimated 1,415 units.
This figure was calculated before UOL launched its 555-unit project Riverbank@Fernvale in Sengkang last month, of which it has sold more than 200 units.
In third place was Bukit Sembawang with an estimated 1,395 units.
The land bank figures consist of unsold units from projects with planning approval as of January this year plus estimated units from sites without planning approval.
They take into account both private projects and executive condominiums (ECs) as of January this year.
If state land tender awards after January this year were to be included, Hongkong Land and its unit MCL Land would have been in second place.
Their land bank would have shot up from 804 units to an estimated 1,931 after MCL Land was awarded two EC plots in Choa Chu Kang earlier this week.
The rest of the top 10 spots for this year were filled by big developers and, for the first time, a substantial Chinese presence.
Far East Organization, Frasers Centrepoint, Keppel Land and CapitaLand all have estimated land banks that hover in the range of around 1,250 to around 1,350 units, according to DTZ.
Chinese developers such as Qingjian Realty and Kingsford Development also muscled their way onto the leader board.
Qingjian Realty has an estimated 1,321 units in its land bank which are all from EC projects.
It won an EC plot in Woodlands and another at Anchorvale Crescent last year.
It also had 100 unsold units as of January this year at the 512-unit Ecopolitan EC project in Punggol, which it launched in August last year.
As for Kingsford Development, it won two private residential sites next to each other in Upper Serangoon View in December last year.
It also has 366 unsold units in its 512-unit Hillview Peak condo in Upper Bukit Timah.
MCC Land plus Hao Yuan Investment, which are not known to be related but work together on projects, came in 10th with an estimated 935 units in their land bank.
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