Foreign developers eye bigger market share as land war heats up in Singapore

Should local players be scared?

According to BNP Paribas, in the past few years, it has seen foreign developers, especially the Chinese developers, making an effort to gain market share, possibly for scale effect, and for beefing up their pipeline to sustain their business operations in Singapore.

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Since the recovery in 2009, more foreign developers have entered the land market to compete against local developers. While they may have contributed to the property market in terms of fresh development ideas and product diversity, their presence has in no doubt heated up competition for land. Based on SLP studies, foreign players’ participation rate has increased from 8% in 2009 to 26% in 2013.

Before 2009-10, foreign developers were mainly from Malaysia such as IOI Properties (IOIPG MK), SP Setia (SPSB MK) and Sunway (SWB MK), and from Hong Kong such as Cheung Kong Holdings (1 HK) and MCL Land. Since then, we have seen more Chinese developers entering the market, such as Qingjian (not listed), MCC Land, Hao Yuan and Kingsford Development. 

Although relative newcomers as developers, some of them (such as Qingjian and MCC Land) are familiar with the Singapore property market, and have operated here for over a decade as construction companies.

Different approaches of participation

Foreign developers adopt various approaches when investing in the Singapore land market. Japanese players tend to participate in joint ventures with local developers. 

For example, Mitsui Fudosan (8801 JP) has a JV with Hong Leong via TID. Mitsubishi Estate (8802 JP) has a long standing partnership with CapitaLand, while Sekisui House (1928 JP) with Fraser Centrepoint and Far East. We also see Malaysian developer, Sunway, teaming up with local Hoi Hup (not listed), while more recently China Vanke entered the Singapore land market by partnering with Keppel Land. 

Hong Kong players such as Cheung Kong and MCL Land (part of Hong Kong Land group) tend to participate on their own, as do most Chinese players such as Qingjian, MCC Land, Hao Yuan and Kingsford.