YNH Property Sdn Bhd have been reported to have signed up Foster & Partners as the architect for its RM1.8bil Menara YNH in Kuala Lumpur. Earlier this year, Kuwait Finance House have purchased 50% of the development for about RM920mil. This will be the architect’s third project in Malaysia, the other two being The Troika in KLCC, and the Petronas University in Perak.

I can’t wait to see the final rendering as Menara YNH would be the biggest project to date for the architect group in Malaysia. The picture showed here is an earlier artist’s impression of the tower – it looks safe and lacks imagination. I hope that they will have a totally new design that will awe us. I have always thought YNH’s offering being a bit generic, so with this piece of news, I think it will elevate their status to a real high end property player.

YNH appoints architects for building

By DAVID TAN (The Star)

PENANG: YNH Property Bhd has appointed Foster & Partners as architects for the group’s RM1.8bil Menara YNH in Kuala Lumpur’s Golden Triangle. “We made the appointment because our buyers for the project have indicated that they wanted an internationally-renowned architect for the building.

“The rationale is to add value to the project,” group corporate services head Daniel Chan told StarBiz. Britain-based Foster & Partners, appointed last week, has high-profile projects in Germany, South Korea, Hong Kong, France and Malaysia. The company designed the London headquarters of global insurance company Swiss-Re, Hongkong and Shanghai Bank’s head office in Hong Kong, Hong Kong International Airport – touted as the world’s largest airport – and London’s third airport, Stansted.

It is currently designing Daewoo Electronics’ headquarters in South Korea, and Vivaldi Tower in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Sir Norman Foster, the 1999 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, is chairman of Foster & Partners. Chan said the iconic Menara YNH would have a luxurious retail podium equipped with energy-saving features. The 45-storey building will have more than 55,000 sq ft of built-up area per floor, and a total of 1.2 million sq ft of lettable space.

Early this year, the group announced an offer from Kuwait Finance House to buy 50% of Menara YNH for RM920mil. Investors from Australia and Singapore are currently considering acquiring the remaining 50% of the project. On the group’s project in Mont Kiara, Chan said YNH Property would launch the RM680mil D’Kiara Place, at the end of the second quarter. The project, comprising serviced apartments, an office block and a retail centre, is located near Plaza Mont Kiara, a landmark business and commercial complex.

In a recent report, ECM Libra Investment Bank said YNH Property has one of the highest unbilled sales in the country. It said with half of Menara YNH for RM920mil, YNH’s unbilled sales of RM1.2bil was one of the largest in the country, more than four times its 2007 revenue of RM290mil. This means that the group has locked in 40% to 50% of its earnings before interest and tax for financial years 2008 and 2009.

City & Country: Your view of the property market and going forward, are you excited?
Datuk K Salman Younis: We are definitely excited. There is a lot happening in Malaysia and we see a lot of opportunities with the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP). We are involved in a number of projects under the 9MP and hope to be involved in more. We are currently selling projects in all of the initiatives announced… the Iskandar Development Region (IDR) and the Sabah and Sarawak initiatives. A lot of the economies are being affected by the slowdown in the US due to the subprime crisis. Most markets are soft and the general feeling is that if the banks declare the full extent of losses by mid-year, the situation should start improving from September.Malaysia, by and large, has not been affected badly and there are many reasons for this – the 9MP, various government initiatives and strong prices for its commodities on the market, among others. The sectors facing a slowdown are the high-tech ones, which are not a major component of the Malaysian economy.Malaysia should continue to do okay. The country has not been affected by the US crisis also because the prices of real estate here are still low compared to the region, making it an attractive buy. We see more and more foreigners coming to buy real estate.

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By Au Foong Yee and Allison Lee (TheEdge)

Until recent years, Kuwait Finance House (KFH) was but another foreign name that showed interest in Malaysian real estate before it moved into a mega retail and residential project – Pavilion Kuala Lumpur – in the heart of the city.KFH has established itself as a key real estate player in Malaysia through participation in various Islamic financing schemes and real estate funds, which have crossed the US$2 billion (about RM6.4 billion) mark.

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