Colombo, a modern city in the making | July 2013 | Colombo, a modern city in the making… Colombo city calls for the need of development towards an urbanized metropolis in transforming to a regional hub. Steps have been taken by means of improving the quality of the road network and beautification of the city to make the metropolis one of the greenest and cleanest cities in Asia. To cater to the required capacity increase in hotels, apartments, office and retail space, many projects including mixed developments have been proposed. However due to back and forth movements in certain policies and other delays, only few out of the announced projects are currently underway while the others are expected in the medium term. Therefore due to the disparity between the currently needed capacity and actually completed, a deficit in supply exists. Thus we believe that there would not be a glut due to these projects being automatically phased out. The government through the state owned Urban Development Authority is involved in the city development whilst many private companies have proposed projects. However out of the listed companies, few such as John Keells Holdings (JKH : LKR260.10), Colombo Land and Development (CLND : LKR43.70), Overseas Realty (OSEA : LKR18.50) and Access Engineering (AEL : LKR20.30) have grasped such opportunities. In the five star city hotel segment a shortfall of c.1,500 hotel rooms (by 2016) would be seen in meeting the expected tourist arrivals trend where the city is currently equipped with 2,000 hotel rooms. A deficit would be evident till 2016/17 as only two five star hotels out of the proposed projects are off ground currently (of capacity 700 rooms). At present, the total number of apartment projects ranging from standard to luxury levels in and around Colombo adds up to c.100, with most of these falling into the standard category. The demand for luxury to semi luxury apartments mainly come from Sri Lankan expats on motive of renting the purchased units. Hence the gradual increase in apartment capacity would meet the slowly growing demand for apartments in line with the maturing city. Due to limited prominent office space available in the capital and few office spaces been proposed, ample opportunity in this segment exists. Proposed retail space and other mixed developments would see the demand changing mainly with the increasing number of tourists from the Indian sub-continent whilst the gaming industry would go hand in hand to create a new demand wave. The country having an annual tourist count exceeding 1 mn would see an additional demand with the growth in the casino industry which is yet to see a global player entering the fray. However it would be a matter of time and we believe that this would create further upside in demand for hotels, apartments and retail space. http://investinmiami.com / TKS Securities (Pvt) Ltd TKS RESEARCH | LEVEL 19, WORLD TRADE CENTER, ECH ELON SQUARE, COLOMBO 1 01 TEL (+94) 117 857 799 | E-MAIL [email protected] Colombo, A modern city in the making | July 2013 | | TKS Research CONTENTS Pg. No. OVERVIEW 3 MIXED DEVELOPMENTS Havelock City 6 Krrish Square 8 AVIC Mixed Development 9 Crown Mixed Development Project 10 Integrated Resort by John Keells Holdings 12 Hyatt Regency Colombo 14 EoN Resorts 16 Liberty Square & Tower 18 Platinum One 19 APARTMENTS Fairway Sky Gardens 20 Iconic 110 Parliament Road 21 Altair Luxury Residencies 23 ON320 Apartments 25 Destiny Apartments, Malls & Residency 27 HOTELS MOVENPICK Colombo 27 Shangri-La Colombo 28 Sheraton Colombo 29 Marino Sands Hotel 30 ITC Hotel 31 Sancity Business Hotel 32 MALLS Colombo City Centre 33 OFFICE SPACES Access Realities 2 Tower 35 2 | P a g e TKS Securities (Pvt) Ltd Colombo, A modern city in the making | July 2013 | | TKS Research Colombo, the capital city established by the British colonial rule expanded with the growth in the overall economy, although the expansion was curtailed due to the three decade civil war. Hence as consequences of the war the city lacks in infrastructure while not being urbanized in addition to being behind many of its regional peers thus giving ample space for the metropolis to develop. Therefore the need for the airport and Colombo port to be expanded along with other infrastructure to be improved arises to accommodate the increasing tourists and business travellers, returning expats, and significant estimated growth in FDIs. Thus urbanization and modern development is much needed for the fast becoming regional hub. Therefore we recognize areas such as road network coupled with free flow of traffic within the city, hotels and residential accommodation, office space, recreational, shopping and entertainment to be developed and fit to the new phase of changing Colombo. Thus a cleaner and a well maintained topographic city with an efficient transport network is essential. In addressing these grey areas in the Colombo city many steps have been taken by means of improving traffic controlling, the quality of the road network, various beautification projects to create a greener environmental and adding up of recreational spaces. Thus in a state of transformation in the post war years the metropolis has emerged as one of Asia’s greenest and cleanest cities and is making a strong comeback to reach standards of Asia’s garden city, Singapore. Moreover shopping and recreational spaces have been developed to meet the retail demand where the state has taken steps through the state owned Urban Development Authority (UDA). Colonial buildings and other large buildings in prime locations in the city have been refurbished and rented out to earn income whilst catering to the needed demand by the UDA. Meanwhile private entities have also come to the forefront by announcing various developments, although very few listed companies such as John Keells Holdings (JKH : LKR260.10), Colombo Land and Development (CLND : LKR43.70), Access Engineering (AEL, LKR20.30) and Overseas Realty (OSEA : LKR18.50) have launched projects. Despite the announcements on many of these projects very few in fact have broken ground. In this report we have identified 9 large scale mixed development projects, 5 standalone apartment projects and 6 three to five star hotel projects which have been announced in and around the city of Colombo. The developments we have identified together would add c.3,000 apartment units and more than 3,000 three to five star hotel rooms in the coming 4-5 years. However we do not expect a glut in hotels, apartments and retail space as the development would be automatically phased out. Mixed Development projects In the mixed development arena, Havelock City has already completed and sold 2 apartments towers (226 units) and another 2 apartment towers (218 units) are under construction. Meanwhile Hyatt Regency and Platinum One have partly completed structures for majority of the level of storeys. However apart from these developments all other projects are yet to break ground. Therefore we believe that the Colombo metropolis would function with a marginal capacity increase during the next 2-3 years where we would not see a real growth until the next 4-5 years. Market for Hotels Currently Colombo is only equipped with c.2,000 five star rooms which are in short supply. With the completion of the Movenpick and Hyatt we would see another c.700 rooms being added during the next 3-4 years. We believe there would be demand for city five star rooms with the expected growth in business, crew and MICE travelers. Further the infrastructure development in the country and being strategically located to expanding economies and large source markets for tourism such as India, China, and Singapore, the country offers good potential for growth. 3 | P a g e TKS Securities (Pvt) Ltd Colombo, A modern city in the making | July 2013 | | TKS Research Market for Apartment units Apart from these city hotels coming up, we are also seeing new luxury and semi luxury in addition to the standard type of apartments being developed in and around Colombo. At the moment we have c.100 apartment projects ranging from standard to luxury levels in Colombo and the suburbs where most of them are fully sold out or 80% sold. While we understand that the highest demand is triggered for semi luxury apartments and when further analyzed it was evident that most of those apartment units are bought by Sri Lankan expats on the motive of renting out to another party where very few actually live there. It is also seen that some degree of demand for such apartment units come from families of businessmen living in rural areas aiming for convenience for schools, higher education and employment associated with the locations of apartments. In line with the expected growth in this segment in the medium term we also expect rental yields to pick up, despite being at low levels of c.6-7% currently. Unlike in most emerging economies, the urban population in Sri Lanka has not increased in accordance with the increase in population over the past five decades and currently, only c.15% of the population live in cities. Despite issues regarding the classification of urban and rural areas, it is estimated that Sri Lanka has a higher percentage of its population living in rural areas. Another factor to also consider is the limited number of expat Sri Lankans living in the west who are in the condominium market and since the end of the conflict, this segment has been at the frontline in picking up luxury apartments. The peak levels of expat interest in Sri Lankan real estate market maybe fast approaching or even possibly behind us in which case the rate of demand growth will slow down.