China’s super-rich investors eye Shanghai hotels for scarcity value, tourism appeal


China’s billionaire investors are looking to pick up luxury hotels in Shanghai while institutional investors like insurers and real estate investment funds and private equity giants take a back seat, as economic stability rekindles risk appetite, according to JLL.

The super-rich are eyeing hotels in prime locations in the commercial and financial hub, undeterred by the current low returns, according to Sun Ling, head of JLL’s capital markets division in East China, citing the scarcity value of such properties over the long run.

“Investors’ concentrated allocation towards core-area assets reflects not only a stabilising risk appetite, but also highlights the scarcity value and resilience of Shanghai’s core-area assets,” she added, declining to identify the hotel targeted by the billionaires.

Their appetite could inject confidence in Shanghai’s slumbering property market. Transaction value of office buildings, rental-home projects, shopping malls and hotels slumped 29.7 per cent to 23 billion yuan (US$3.2 billion) in the first six months from a year earlier, data compiled by CBRE showed.

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Visitors swamp Chinese tourist sites during ‘golden week’

Visitors swamp Chinese tourist sites during ‘golden week’

Average transaction value fell 25 per cent to 360 million yuan in the second quarter from the preceding three months, according to JLL, with high-net-worth individuals and corporate investors contributing 88 per cent of the 23 deals, Sun said.

Among notable deals, privately owned Inner Mongolia Shilin Investment Group shelled out 300 million yuan to acquire the CitiGo Hotel in Shanghai’s suburb. Insurers and real estate-focused funds were generally still worried about an oversupply situation, property consultants said.
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