Shui On Land Ltd, a Shanghai-based real estate developer, and its partners in a venture will spend more than 3 billion yuan (S$599 million)

Shui On Land Ltd, a Shanghai-based real estate developer, and its partners in a venture will spend more than 3 billion yuan (S$599 million) on a software park in the north-eastern Chinese city of Dalian.

The venture will pay Yida Group, a local developer, 936 million yuan for a 78 per cent stake in the project, Shui On Land said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange yesterday. The venture, which includes Yida and Shui On Construction & Materials Ltd, will also pay Yida 2.14 billion yuan for the land and other related costs in the project.

Shui On Land, which first sold shares to the public in a Hong Kong share sale in October, has been expanding. The company and Shui On Construction, both controlled by billionaire Vincent Lo, in November bought developer Sheng Jin Real Estate Co, which owns an office and commercial building site in Shanghai.

After the transaction, Shui On Land will own 61.5 per cent of the venture, Dalian Software Park Phase 2. Yida will own 10.3 per cent while Shui On Construction will own the rest. The project has an area of about 4 million square metres.

The software park’s first phase opened in 1998, has a gross floor area of 1.6 million sq m and has attracted more than 340 software companies, Shui On said in March.

Source: The Business Times, 29 May 2007