UOL @ 2.35

UOL Consortium Wins Bid For One-North Condo

Extracted From Dow Jones Newswires.

By Kevin Lim Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--A joint venture between United Overseas Land Ltd. (U14.SG), Kheng Leong Group and Low Keng Huat Ltd. (L32.SG) has won the bidding to develop the first condominium complex at Singapore's One-North research hub.

Liam Wee Sin, group general manager of UOL, told a press conference Tuesday that the joint venture, Vista Development Pte. Ltd., paid the Singapore government S$108.9 million for the land.

This works out to about S$255 per square foot of built-up space, he said.

When completed by the end of 2008, the futuristic 350-380 unit complex with sky gardens and aerial linkways will house researchers and other people working at One-North.

The 200-hectare One-North site has been set aside for research and development in the western part of the city-state near the National University of Singapore.

Vista is 50% owned by Kheng Leong, an investment company controlled by the family of Wee Cho Yaw, who is chairman of United Overseas Bank Ltd. (U11.SG), one of Singapore's largest lenders.

UOL owns 30% of the Vista with the remaining 20% owned by Low Keng Huat. Both the Wee family and UOB have stakes in UOL.

Pratik Burman Ray, a property analyst at UOB's stock broking arm UOB-Kay Hian, said the project's break-even cost will likely be in the region of S$550 per square foot.

This estimate takes into consideration the higher cost of building such a development and likely interest payments over the development period.

Chong Lit Cheong, chief executive of JTC Corp., the government agency responsible for the island's science and industrial parks, said One-North will eventually have more than 20,000 apartment units when fully developed 20 to 30 years from now.

Biopolis, a complex that houses government-funded institutes and companies engaged in medical and biotechnology research, is already operating in One-North, as is the Singapore campus of Insead, a European business school.

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