any idea why kazanah is buying back iskandar land?
View attachment 15914
Nothing New. You can refer to an article almost 2 yeara back.
http://www.thestar.com.my/Story/?file=/2012/3/27/business/10992442
"“If the Arabs are not willing to develop the land, we cannot let the project be left idle, there must be activity on the land. In fact, we had initiated this (to get other investors) who are from China, South Korea and also Japan to invest in the land,” Iskandar Investment Bhd (IIB) president/chief executive officer Datuk Syed Mohamed Ibrahim said in an interview.
He added that the Arabs “will no longer be involved in Medini, but it was good that they came (initially).”
Five years ago, Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Development Co was the leading consortium investing US$720mil (RM2.1bil) in Medini Iskandar Malaysia to jointly develop 2,230 acres. But the global crisis had thrown the Arab property world into disarray and that had somewhat slowed the development of the Medini parcel.
Hence, IIB had to get other investors, including those from Singapore, North Asia and domestic players.
“The interest (from the foreign investors) came to our office and we facilitated the deals with the foreign investors,” he added.
But it cannot be denied that the Arabs did put in the money when Malaysia wanted foreign investors to invest in Iskandar Malaysia, which is the country's first economic corridor.
Syed Mohamed said parties from China had wanted to buy the entire Medini area, but because it would be developed into a cosmopolitan area, they had to ensure there was a mix of investors from different parts of the world.
“We have got a nice problem as far as genuine interest from potential local and foreign parties for the land is concerned. We have a suite of investors and we have no restrictions to sell the plots of land to foreigners. There is a lot of interest for land and while there is limited land out there, we are not ready to open the over 6,000 acres for sale presently,” he said.
He would rather wait for land prices to appreciate before opening the over 6,000 acres for development."