Real Estate Investing Information Blog

Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd. is a planned property company and a ingredient of the Hang Seng Index. The company's main activities are Property development and investment, project management, construction, hotel operation, department store operation, finance, investment holding and infrastructure. It is the third major Hong Kong real estate developer by market capitalization.

Henderson Investment ("HI") is a 73.5% listed supplementary of the Company, which holds the collection stakes in the Hong Kong Ferry (Holdings) Company, the Miramar Hotel Group, and The Hong Kong and China Gas Company. Its shares have been consistently trading at under NAV. In November 2002, the company attempted to buy out marginal shareholders by making an all-cash present of HKD 7.60, representing a 40% reduction to NAV. The buyout offer chop when it was opposed by additional than 14% of the holders of the outstanding shares. In November 2005, it made another effort when it offered one share for each 2.6 share in HI, although the offer was later sweetened to 2.5 shares. The revised deal valued HI at an 18% reduction to its net asset value. The company had convinced shareholder Templeton Investment to back the buyout. Nevertheless, this next offer was again rejected, more barely this time, by 10.94% of the minority vote. This was in surplus of the statutory blocking vote of 10%.

On December 8, 2006, the company spun off and scheduled 12 office and 8 sell properties in Hong Kong into a Real Estate Investment Trust, Sunlight. However, the subject fell by 6.5% on its market entrance on December 21, and as at March 2007 has fallen 16.2 percent (since the listing) due to investors' anxiety of financial engineering of the REIT.

The estimated sharing yield stands at 10%, the highest among Hong Kong REITs. Yet, investors fear a refuse of distribution after yield-boosting mechanisms, such as attention swaps. Henderson Land also obtainable a temporary dividend waiver as a sweetener. Yields are predictable to fall in 2010, and over in 2012 as rental reversions come through. The issue's flop was cited as the source Regal Hotels International chose to delay its own planned REIT offering.