Bandar Malaysia: Flip Now, Flop Later

“Dengar bunyi guruh di langit, air di tempayan dicurahkan.”

In this case, the “water” is the RM7.41bil deal that would’ve seen IWH-CREC buying a 60% stake in the Bandar Malaysia development project. This deal was “thrown out” by the Gov’t in early May, in anticipation of a storm of investments from China’s Dalian Wanda Group. So far though, it’s been all thunder and no rain on Bandar Malaysia.

While the crippling pain of kidney stones has meant rest days at home for Wong Chen, his gray matter is still hard at work answering questions from reporters. Here are his thoughts on the Bandar Malaysia project:

“The extensive actions taken by the Chinese regulators on Dalian Wanda caught a lot of people by surprise. Without the ability to raise funds coupled with capital controls to restrict Chinese homebuyers from buying property overseas, Wanda will not be able to proceed with any overseas deals. This essentially puts an end to all the talks of Wanda and Malton Bhd being joint venture (JV) partners on Bandar Malaysia.

“Bandar Malaysia will now go back to the drawing board and for the foreseeable future will be driven by local developers based on local demands. That being so, based on the current sluggish property sector, my guess is the earliest Bandar Malaysia can take off is about three from now.”

This and more in the FMT article at here.