Briefly, M+S is a jointly owned company by Khazanah Nasional and Temasek Holdings. They own 60 percent and 40 percent respectively. This joint venture company was set up in 2011 by the sovereign wealth funds to develop land parcels in Marina South and Ophir-Rochor. This was a land swap deal which ended a 20-year impasse over the Points of Agreement signed in 1990. The agreement was for three plots of former Malayan Railway land and three additional plots in Bukit Timah exchanged for four land parcels in Marina South and two parcels in Ophir-Rochor. More details in a Malaysian Digest article here. Total gross development value (GDV) for Marina One and Duo is S$11 billion (RM32.93 billion). Besides just these two, Temasek and Khazanah are also partners in the development of Afiniti Medini and Avira Medini with a strong focus on wellness and have a combined gross development value of some S$1 billion (RM2.99 billion)
It has been reported in many media that more than 70 percent of the office space at Marina One and Duo had been taken up before its official launch. The official launch by Prime Minister Najib Razak and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was on the evening of 15 January 2018. Some of the companies who have taken up the space in Marina One include tech giant Facebook, ride-hailing company Grab and financial institutions like Bank Julius Baer, Prudential and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG). Meanwhile, Duo’s 570,000 sq ft of Grade-A office space has Abbott Laboratories, Chevron and Mastercard as tenants. M+S Chairman Azman Yahya sais that M+S is already profitable. M+S CEO Kemmy Tan shared that Marina One, which spans 1.88 million sq ft of office space is the largest Grade-A office space in Asia.
Beyond the office space, 80 percent of the Marina One’s 140,000 sq ft of retail space has been taken up. This is the same for Duo’s 60,000 sq ft of retail space. Most occupants are food and beverage establishments. (If the food and beverage companies are presented with the fact that 70 percent of the office space are taken, I think it is easy for them to decide to quickly come in.) Residential wise, close to 100 percent of 660 homes in Duo have been sold while for one of Marina One’s residential towers, 80 percent of 521 units have been sold. Please do read the article in PropertyHunter here. This is the full joint statement by the Prime Ministers of both countries. It’s published in channelnewsasia.
It’s great to be friends because both countries are not that large, even if we add up the population for both countries. Furthermore, we are neighbouring nations too. Let’s hope for even more good news for High Speed Rail yeah. Happy following.
written on 16 Jan 2018
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