Mirvac Group’s plans to hold its next board meeting in one of Asia’s major cities had left some curious about whether moves were afoot by the well-regarded property developer to spin off its lucrative residential arm at the top of the housing market cycle.
It turns out, however, that managing director Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz will be taking her board through the region for a listening tour.
The objectives of the trip, which will be attended by prominent company directors such as Elana Rubin Samantha Mostyn, along with chairman John Mulcahy, are for the board to learn more about apartment developments in Asia, and potentially strike new capital partnership deals with major investors in the region.
Mirvac recently drafted in investment bank JPMorgan as its defence adviser as Chinese companies become increasingly interested in buying the country’s top residential real estate projects and moves have also been made to boost its development team.
For the six months to December, Mirvac posted a 13 per cent lift in its net profit to $279m. Its residential business was a strong performer, and the company’s share price recently rallied to $1.985.
Meanwhile, first-round bids closed yesterday for Morgan Stanley’s $8.9 billion Investa Property Group in a process said to attract some of the major property investors in the Asia Pacific region and major listed real estate trusts such as Charter Hall, advised by JPMorgan, the GPT Group and Dexus Property Group.
Some question whether private equity giant Blackstone would be excluded from among the names submitting an offer, with sources saying that the group may now be turning its attention more towards General Electric’s $US200m global selldown of its commercial lending business.
This article first appeared in The Australian Business Review.