Lippo prices Trillium at $1,700 psf average

Lippo prices Trillium at $1,700 psf average
March 22nd, 2007

Lippo this week previews the first of three Singapore condos it plans to launch this year that could generate a total pre-tax profit of more than $600 million.

It has priced its Trillium freehold condo opposite Great World City at an average of about $1,700-plus per sq ft, with the range of prices for the 29-storey development from about $1,600 psf to just under $2,100 psf.

The group has secured enough interest in the 231-unit condo to sell off everything, with many buyers indicating interest in multiple units. ‘There are a few families from overseas wanting to buy three, four, five or even six apartments - one for each child,’ Lippo Group deputy chairman Stephen Riady told BT yesterday.

‘These are high net-worth buyers that we know from the region - Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan. But we may have to ask them to buy fewer units, as we’d like to have a wider spread of buyers so more people can come into the showflat and see the quality of our product.’

Lippo, controlled by Indonesia’s Riady family, has an 80 per cent stake in the Trillium, which is coming up on a site it bought from OCBC early last year.

Its breakeven cost is about $1,100 psf, and pre-tax profit from this project alone could be about $250 million, BT understands.

On the Kim Seng Plaza site next door, which the group bought late last year, Lippo plans another luxury condo, perhaps with 100-110 units, which it hopes to launch towards the year’s end.

Assuming it achieves an average selling price of $1,900 psf, the pre-tax profit from this development - in which Lippo has an effective stake of about 80 per cent - could come to about $110 million.

The group also has a 50 per cent stake in a third project - a condominium with about 180 units at Sentosa Cove, slated for release around July this year.

‘We’ll sell for over $2,000 psf average,’ Mr Riady said.

The profit from this could be about $250 million.

The Trillium’s 231 units will be housed in three blocks. The development will have six penthouses, the most expensive being a 5,600 sq ft unit that will cost close to $12 million.

The remaining units comprise 75 two-bedders with study, 75 three-bedders with study, 50 four-bedders and 25 five-bedders. The project is being marketed by Knight Frank and ERA. Last year, Lippo launched two condos in Singapore - Newton One and The Metropolitan Condominium. The latter is a joint venture with CapitaLand.

Lippo was the biggest overseas investor in Singapore’s property market last year.

Besides acquiring $1.067 billion of direct property investments here, the group invested about $1.06 billion in listed Overseas Union Enterprise, which owns prize properties like Mandarin Hotel in Orchard Road, OUB Centre in Raffles Place and the Overseas Union House site at Collyer Quay, which is being redeveloped.

A Lippo-controlled fund reaped a profit of more than $200 million from the sale of 78 Shenton Way that was completed earlier this year.

Source: The Business Times, 22 March 2007

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