What’s next for property tycoon Lim?

PETALING JAYA (March 31): Property tycoon Tan Sri Lim Kang Hoo’s second thwarted attempt to unlock the value of his properties parked in Iskandar Waterfront City Bhd (IWC) and its largest shareholder Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn Bhd (IWH) has raised questions over a potential third attempt, according to The Edge weekly.

To recap, Ekovest Bhd’s shareholders had turned down its proposal to acquire IWC, which was pitched as an opportunity to invest in the latter’s landbank in Johor at a highly discounted price of about RM28 psf.

“Although the proposal was rejected by minority shareholders of Ekovest, we have at least managed to communicate to our shareholders and potential investors the underlying value of both Ekovest and IWC for investment reference,” said Wong Muh Rong of Astramina Advisory, one of Lim’s advisers for the proposed merger between IWC and Ekovest.

IWC owns about 1,000 acres of land in Tebrau, Johor, while IWH owns about 4,300 acres of mostly waterfront land in the south of Johor.

IWC is currently in a joint venture with China’s Greenland Group to develop about 127.92 acres of land, which is being disposed of to Greenland Tebrau Sdn Bhd, in which IWC has a 20% stake while Greenland owns the remaining 80%.

To recap, IWH was supposed to be listed in 2015 when Iskandar Malaysia’s real estate scene was still hot, but this failed to materialise as the market cooled.

Lim then attempted a reverse takeover of IWC by injecting a huge amount of land owned by IWH, as well as a few tracts owned by himself and members of the Johor royal family.

IWC drew a lot of attention after IWH proposed a merger through a share swap scheme as investors were attracted to the prospect of tapping into the much-hyped Bandar Malaysia project at the former Sungai Besi airport site in Kuala Lumpur.

IWH later formed a joint venture with China Railway Engineering Corp (M) Sdn Bhd to buy a stake in Bandar Malaysia from TRX City Sdn Bhd, which was eventually appointed the master developer of the mega project that was expected to have a GDV of RM200 billion.

However, the deal was aborted by TRX City and investors dumped their shares.

The Edge noted that as Ekovest’s minority shareholders have rejected the acquisition and Bandar Malaysia is already out of the equation, it remains to be seen what steps Lim will take next to unlock the value of the assets, if he does continue down this route.