Bandar Malaysia: Positive possibilities?

Positive possibilities. Quite some time back, I wrote about Bandar Malaysia when some colleagues remarked that they have NO IDEA at all why people get excited with Bandar Malaysia. It’s here: Why are there interest with bandar Malaysia? I argued that this is an interesting piece of land. Well, yesterday I wrote about the termination notice from TRX to IWC TREC and what would be some of the potential new possibilities / combinations. The reasoning remains the same. If this is a piece of land in a small town, it will NEVER be so interesting. Now I read about the possibility of Dalian Wanda teaming up with Malton Group plus the potential of our Employees Provident Fund (EPF) taking a part. What if somehow they could squeeze in a Wanda theme park as well?
Here’s the full report in TheStar: Malton, Dalian and EPF teaming up for the job?  Who is Dalian Wanda? I have also written about them some time back. They are so big that their owner has challenged Disney’s parks in China. Wanda City vs Disney, choosing one or going both  Who is Malton Group then? Well here’s an older news about them. Bukit Jalil City integrated development and secondly choices  Yes, Malton is the developer of Pavillion KL which continues to do well amidst current slowdown in retail growth. Mentioned in the report was also this sentence, “Lim and the Malton group have in the past been associated with the Bandar Malaysia project. The foreign partner at that time was said to be Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of that country,” said a source. (In other words, this is not a totally unfamiliar name, just that it did not get the opportunity with Bandar Malaysia after QIA exited.)

Assuming both of them would be teaming up with EPF, then I think it’s a win-win for EPF contributors. Our money is being invested into a development which should do very well because of the fact that it’s going to be connected to the High Speed Rail which is estimated to be completed by 2026.  Here’s also some additional about Dalian’s property credentials. It’s unit, Wanda Commercial Properties is the world’s largest commercial property enterprise, holding a combined 32.33 million sq m of property space. It has opened 187 Wanda Plaza projects in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Kunming with plans to open 50 more in China this year. No one knows yet and no announcements from the decision makers yet. So, we can only wait to see if the master developer who was dropped has really dropped out or if this ‘new team’ will take over. Who knows, another few teams are announced soon? For all the other teams, do make EPF a partner. My money is inside EPF…. As for whichever media that says they are trying to ‘rescue’ the project, I think you really look down on Dalian Wanda. Please stop doing this. Cheers.
written on 6 May 2017
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