Singapore JTC launches new space for the arts

Singapore JTC launches new space for the arts
MEMBERS of the arts community in Singapore will now have another platform to showcase their talent.
JTC Corporation yesterday launched the Wessex Village Square @ one-north - a space for art exhibitions, music and dance performances and other events.

The square will also house an art workshop and studio, a dessert cafe and an Italian trattoria and cocktail bar, all accompanied by gallery spaces.

‘Wessex Village Square will be a focal point and vibrant hotspot where community events will be held and artistic talents will show their work,’ said JTC assistant chief executive officer Philip Su.

The 10,000 sq ft Wessex Village Square is at the heart of the Wessex Estate, a heritage area in the one-north innovation and research hub that includes Biopolis and Fusionopolis.

JTC has refurbished four blocks of walk-up apartments into 24 experimental work lofts and adapted the previous Judo Federation Club and Colbar into the Village Square, Mr Su explained.

In conjunction with the launch, several artistic events have been lined up for the public at the Wessex Estate today.
 
People can catch the Wessex Artists Open House, Arts Bazaar and a movie, among other things.
Source : Business Times   - 12 April 2008

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Court of Appeal slashes damages awarded to Singapore JTC

Court of Appeal slashes damages awarded to Singapore JTC

By MICHELLE QUAH
THE Court of Appeal has substantially slashed damages granted to JTC Corporation after its 2005 victory over Hong Kong contractor Wishing Star.
The Appeal Court, on Thursday, reduced JTC’s original award of $8.14 million damages to just $339,824 - and ordered it to pay three-quarters of costs.

The case has its roots in a contract dating back to June 2002. JTC Corporation, Singapore’s biggest industrial landlord, contracted Wishing Star to provide glass facade walls at the Biopolis, the biomedical research centre at JTC’s one-north project in Buona Vista.

In September 2002, JTC terminated the deal, accusing Wishing Star of misrepresenting its facilities and capabilities when it bid for the project in an open tender. Wishing Star sued, and the High Court ruled in its favour, in 2004. But JTC appealed.

In 2005, the Appeal Court found that Wishing Star had made fraudulent misrepresentations that were material to the award of the contract by JTC - and held Wishing Star liable to JTC for damages due to the termination of the contract.
 
In 2007, the High Court deemed Wishing Star to be liable to JTC for some $8.14 million damages - of which, $7.8 million was the difference in the value of Wishing Star’s contract and the value of contract between JTC and another sub-contractor, Bovine Lend Lease, which was hired to carry out the facade works after Wishing Star’s termination. Wishing Star appealed against the award of damages.

The Appeal Court on Wednesday dismissed Wishing Star’s appeal against all other claims - but allowed it against the $7.8 million.

The court looked at whether the $7.8 million was the loss suffered by JTC as a direct result of fraudulent misrepresentations by Wishing Star.

In the first tender, Wishing Star was the lowest bidder at $54 million, followed by SB Facade Pte Ltd at $54.07 million and Liang Huat Aluminum Industries Pte Ltd at $63.46 million.

JTC did not consider SB Facade’s bid because of its past experience with the contractor - which made Liang Huat’s the next lowest bid, after Wishing Star’s.

After JTC terminated the contract with Wishing Star, it invited parties to submit a tender - and Bovine Lend Lease won with its lowest bid of $61.81 million.

The Appeal Court noted that in the original tender exercise, if JTC had not contracted with Wishing Star it would have hired Liang Huat. And Liang Huat’s contract value at $63.46 million would have been more than that of Bovine Lend Lease’s at $61.81 million.

The court ruled that, given the principles governing the award of damages for tort, there was no loss proven by JTC.

Wishing Star was represented by Tan Liam Beng, Eugene Tan and Ling Vey Hong of Drew & Napier, while JTC was represented by Ho Chien Mien and Sheik Umar Bin Mohamed Bagushair.
Source : Business Times   - 12 April 2008

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CapitaLand-led group lands $2b property loan - Singapore

CapitaLand-led group lands $2b property loan - Singapore

Biggest ever loan syndicated in S’pore will be applied towards Farrer Court project
By KALPANA RASHIWALA

THE largest syndicated residential property development loan ever arranged in Singapore - a huge $1.996 billion - has been issued to the CapitaLand-led consortium that clinched Farrer Court.
The five-year facilities have been fully underwritten by DBS Bank, UOB Asia, Standard Chartered Bank, OCBC and Royal Bank of Scotland.

The proceeds will be used to refinance the acquisition cost of the site and to partly finance the development and construction of a new condo on it.

CapitaLand has a 35 per cent stake in Morganite Pte Ltd, a joint-venture vehicle it set up with Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL), Morgan Stanley Real Estate Special Situations Funds III and Wachovia Development Corporation to acquire Farrer Court for $1.3388 billion - the biggest-ever collective sale in Singapore.

HPL and Morgan Stanley each own 22.5 per cent of Morganite, while Wachovia holds the remaining 20 per cent.

Farrer Court’s acquisition was completed on March 10. The consortium plans to build a 36-storey condo designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Zaha Hadid.

The 99-year leasehold project, with about 1,500 units, is expected to be launched next year.

The facility agreement for nearly $2 billion comprises a secured term loan for the land, a revolving credit facility that will be progressively drawn down for the project’s construction and bank guarantees.

Stanchart managing director (syndications-origination) Harrison Ong said that the facility agreement has a five-year tenure. When asked about interest rate, he would only say: ‘It is reasonable, given the strength of the sponsors, the size of the facility and the location of the project.’

The facilities will be secured by, among other things, a mortgage over the Farrer Court site and a debenture over the assets of Morganite.

In addition, the sponsors - the four shareholders of Morganite - will provide certain project and facility undertakings.

Source : Business Times   - 12 April 2008

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Mindy Yong

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Issues of cost, procedures bubble up in Singapore new en bloc rules

Issues of cost, procedures bubble up in Singapore new en bloc rules

Fine-tuning and improving the rules revised in October is an ongoing process, says Law Ministry
By KALPANA RASHIWALA

(SINGAPORE) The Ministry of Law is understood to be planning a review soon of the revised en bloc legislation, which took effect on Oct 4 last year.
 
 
When queried, a MinLaw spokeswoman said: ‘Fine-tuning and improving the legislation is an ongoing process. We will continue to monitor the effect of the changes in practice, and will make further changes, if necessary.’

She added: ‘Since the amended Land Titles (Strata) Act came into effect on Oct 4 last year, we have received feedback in letters from the public and through our service enquiry line. We have also noted the feedback from letters to the press and media articles.

‘The types of feedback received, mainly from affected owners, include welcoming the changes; requests to make the collective sale process even more rigorous by introducing more safeguards; suggestions on how the legislative provisions can be further amended to make the collective sale processes more efficient; and requests for clarification on the amended legislation.’

Property agents and lawyers have told BT that the new rules, while introducing more safeguards and transparency for owners, have made the en bloc process longer, more tedious and increased costs for owners. The total cost (including legal fees) of a collective sale to an owner may have doubled or increased even beyond that.

And with weaker sentiment today and a slimmer chance of success of an en bloc deal materialising, the increasing tendency among property consultants is to pass costs such as development baseline searches upfront to owners, instead of bearing them first and then seeking reimbursement later from sales proceeds as in the past, said Savills Singapore director Steven Ming.

‘Some owners baulk at having to make upfront payments and that may prove to be a stumbling block to en bloc sales,’ he added.

Calling for extraordinary general meetings (EGMs) has also become more troublesome under the new rules. And some agents questioned the need for giving owners a five-day cooling-off period after they have signed the collective sale agreement (CSA) on top of requiring a lawyer to witness signatures. ‘We should have just one or the other,’ said Credo Real Estate managing director Karamjit Singh.

But on a more positive note, Mr Singh added: ‘The requirement for extraordinary general meetings gives owners a clear-cut time schedule of events in any upcoming exercise so they can know what to expect. The new rules also streamline requirements for submitting an application to Strata Titles Board (STB), thereby cutting the advertisement costs payable by the owners. And STB can disregard technical irregularities in the applications if they do not prejudice owners’ interests.’

A chunk of the higher costs of an en bloc sale stems from legal fees.

The fees have at least doubled in some cases to reflect the greater scope of work for lawyers under the new rules, said Lee & Lee partner Ow Yong Thian Soo.

Even before they are appointed, lawyers may have to help owners requisition the first EGM where the sales committee is appointed. After being appointed, lawyers’ additional duties, under the revised rules, include witnessing signatures and updating consent levels every four weeks instead of every eight weeks - with no guarantee that they will secure the 80 per cent minimum consent, or that there will be an eventual sale.

Rodyk & Davidson partner Norman Ho said that as a result, his firm has become more circumspect in accepting new en bloc sale appointments, preferring to choose cases where owners’ expectations are realistic and hence chances of a sale are higher.

‘Generally in the industry, lawyers may have charged about $70-150 per unit for upfront disbursements for doing searches to verify ownership of the units, etc, previously. Today, this may cost anywhere from $250-300. And the professional legal fee, collected upon completion of an en bloc sale, has also increased from about 0.15 to 0.2 per cent of the sale price previously to around 0.3 to 0.4 per cent today.’

Mr Ho added: ‘I know of some firms that are proposing to charge an upfront professional fee of $1,000 to $2,000 per unit, which will be offset from the final fee of say 0.4 per cent, if there is a successful sale.’

Property consultants’ fees is also understood to have also increased by about 50 to 60 per cent because of more work, longer gestation period and more meetings.

Also, owners will now have to cough up the cost of a mandatory land valuation, typically about $5,000 to $25,000 (shared among owners) which has to be submitted at the close of tender. They may also have to be prepared to pay for a development baseline search - which could cost $7,000 to $20,000 - in cases where it may be necessary to ascertain the development baseline to provide certainty in calculating the development charge (DC) payable.

In the past, management corporation funds were sometimes used for such searches, while in other instances, majority owners paid first. In some cases, even property consultants footed the bill initially (but were later reimbursed from sales proceeds) - but that was when the market was buoyant. These days, agents are reluctant to pay upfront for development baseline searches.

Mr Singh suggested that the authorities should make it clear whether the management corporation’s funds may be used for development baseline searches to allow owners to price the asset accurately.

Previously, the sales committee could independently call for EGMs but under new rules, these must be requisitioned by at least 25 per cent of owners, or by owners controlling at least 20 per cent of share values in the development, Rodyk’s Mr Ho said.

However, some property consultants and lawyers said that it is not clear whether the sales committee can still call for general meetings without such requisitions under the new rules - and sought for greater clarity on this issue.

Savills’ Mr Ming said that it is not realistic to expect a lawyer to witness signatures as owners may have questions and ‘it should be very much the agent’s role to persuade them on the merits of the en bloc sale’.
Source : Business Times   - 12 April 2008

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Mindy Yong

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Singapore Heritage centre seeks full govt funding to stay afloat

Singapore Heritage centre seeks full govt funding to stay afloat 

Malay Heritage Centre struggling 2 years after striking out on its own

By Arlina Arshad 
 
TWO years after the Malay Heritage Centre took a step towards becoming financially self-sustaining, it has made an appeal for long-term government funding to stay afloat.
It had at first thought it could make it on the formula of ‘one-third government funding, one-third revenue from programmes and one-third income from fund-raising activities’, Malay Heritage Foundation chairman Zainul Abidin Rasheed told The Straits Times on Wednesday.

But it did not work.

The Malay Heritage Centre, located in Sultan Gate in Kampong Glam, needs $1.5 million annually for operating expenses and to run programmes promoting Malay heritage, culture and history.

Its revenues now meet only half that.

The centre’s finances were in the red in 2006. It did better last year - with 1,835 heritage and cultural events taking place then.

The centre earned more than $800,000 last year from events, rental and gate takings to its museum - an increase of more than 30percent from the year before.

Mr Zainul said full funding from the Government is needed to make the centre ‘vibrant and active’.

After it closed its books for the financial year on March 31, it appealed to the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (Mica) for a review on its finances. A study is under way.

The Malay Heritage Centre, which occupies a 165-year-old palace built by Sultan Ali, the son of former Singapore ruler Sultan Hussein Shah, received $17 million from Mica to restore and develop its grounds in 2005, and $200,000 in 2006 to meet operating expenses.

Two years ago, responding to the Government’s call for the centre to be self-sustaining, its management decided to strike out on its own, instead of being ‘tied to government funding all the time’, said MrZainul, who is also Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.

The centre has since learnt that staying solvent is not easy - and this after what was considered a good year.

Mr Zainul said the centre would have been in the red if not for a $200,000 grant Mica provided to match its endowment fund donations last year and other support.

Revenue is still coming in, he noted, but it may not be enough if the centre is to grow.

The foundation’s general manager, MrEddy Noor Hassan, told The Straits Times the centre has cut costs by shrinking its staff strength from 15 to 10 and cutting back on maintenance services like landscaping and cleaning.

‘If this continues in the long run, we may have to compromise on quality and standards of upkeeping of the centre,’ he said.

Takings from entry tickets to the centre’s museum are nominal. And when Sars and the recession hit, demand for leases on the centre’s space fell.

Mr Zainul’s worries are shared by museums worldwide, which are also in a government-funding crunch.

Mr Kwa Chong Guan, former director of the National Museum, told The Straits Times museums cannot be expected to sustain themselves from gate takings, shops and public programmes.

He said: ‘Many museums have to depend on the government for funding. Some, like the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, have huge endowments which enable them to be almost self-sufficient - but even these museums get some support from their city governments.’

Responding to queries from The Straits Times, a Mica spokesman said yesterday it is ‘pleased’ the centre’s financial performance has improved over the years.

But the Government is reviewing the current framework to assess the feasibility of such heritage centres working with national museums to present Singapore’s heritage more effectively.

The spokesman added that the review will take into account interest expressed last month by some members of the Indian community in an Indian Heritage Centre. Sources said the community also hopes for long-term Government funding for this.

Mica did not say when the review will be completed, but sources said it could be within two months.
 

Source : Straits Times   - 12 April 2008

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