Mandarin Gardens en bloc attempt fails to take off
The asking price for the development was raised after the owners discovered that the land parcel was undervalued.
The en bloc sale attempt of Mandarin Gardens failed to take off even as the asking price was raised to a record high of $2.927 billion, reported the New Paper.
This comes after only 68 percent of the owners signed the collective sales agreement on Sunday (23 Mar), which is 12 percent short of the 80 percent mandate needed to launch the property for tender.
More: Understanding The En Bloc Process (August 2018)
“This being our first attempt at collective sale, we have learnt valuable lessons which will certainly be very helpful in our next journey,” said Mandarin Gardens collective sales committee (CSC) chairman Vincent Teo.
The asking price for the development was first raised to $2.788 billion in November 2018, up from $2.479 billion after the owners discovered that the land parcel was undervalued.
Last month, the asking price was again raised to $2.927 billion to entice more owners to agree to the sale.
If the sale had gone through, it would have been the largest transaction in dollar terms.
With Mandarin Gardens being a large site, ZACD Group executive director Nicholas Mak noted that it would be difficult to get the requisite number of signatures for the collective sale agreement compared to smaller sites, with at least 30 units.
Despite the setback, Teo remains optimistic, noting that a new collective sale process could be initiated even without waiting for a two-year lapse period, if 50 percent of owners by share value sign a request for a general meeting to create a new CSC.
He hoped those who signed the current agreement would support another attempt to form an en bloc sale committee.
Get more details on the property market outlook for 2019 here
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
