June 28, 2011--PETALING JAYA (THE STAR/ANN) -- Malaysia's Khazanah Nasional Bhd has teamed up with Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd to develop 30bil ringgit (US$9.8bil) worth of real-estate projects in Singapore and Iskandar Malaysia.

In a statement, both state-owned investment holding companies said they would form two new joint-venture companies M+S Pte Ltd and Pulau Indah Ventures Sdn Bhd for joint-development projects in Singapore and Iskandar Malaysia, respectively.

"We are honoured to be undertaking these exciting developments at these key sites in Singapore and Iskandar Malaysia with our counterparts from Singapore, Temasek Holdings," Khazanah managing director Azman Mokhtar said in the statement.

"The development in Iskandar with Temasek will be highly complementary and builds on the momentum of existing and planned projects in Iskandar Malaysia, in which Khazanah has been involved since 2006. Both these projects mark our first joint-development investment with Temasek, and we look forward to a strong and fruitful partnership in both Singapore and Iskandar Malaysia."

Temasek's executive director and CEO Ho Ching in echoing the same sentiment said: "Both the Khazanah and Temasek teams put in tremendous effort, working very closely together to develop the best ideas possible for our joint projects. We were also very fortunate to have the expert and highly professional support of leading real estate companies like UEM Land (Holdings Bhd) from Malaysia as well as Mapletree (Investments Pte Ltd) and CapitaLand from Singapore.

"I am also especially grateful for the guidance, advice and support of very experienced industry leaders who will guide the Singapore developments as key board members of M+S. I look forward to the successful development of the projects both in Johor as well as Singapore."

M+S, which would be 60:40 owned by Khazanah and Temasek respectively, would develop four land parcels in Marina South and two land parcels in Ophir Rochor. The gross development value of the projects, which would comprise office, residential, hotel and retail components on a permitted gross floor area of up to 501,020 sq m, was estimated to worth around S$11bil (RM27bil).

UEM Land, a real estate company within Khazanah's portfolio, and Mapletree, a Temasek portfolio company, would oversee the marketing and development of the project at Marina South.

The marketing and development of the Ophir Rochor site would be overseen by UEM Land and CapitaLand Ltd, another Temasek portfolio company.

As for the development in Iskandar Malaysia, two new sites one in Medini North and the other at the Heritage Cluster in Medini Central had already been identified for joint commercial development by Pulau Indah, an 50:50 joint venture between Khazanah and Temasek.

Pulau Indah intends to develop serviced apartments, a corporate training centre, and commercial, retail, residential and wellness-related offerings on these sites. Khazanah and Temasek were still in discussions and negotiations with potential partners and operators for the various components to maximise the commercial potential of the location.

Nevertheless, planning and design works for the Iskandar Malaysia projects, estimated at about RM3bil on a permitted gross floor area of up to 1,365,675 sq m, had already commenced since the first quarter.

With the signing of these agreements yesterday, the projects would move towards design and further implementation and delivery of the initial phases over the next five years, the companies said.

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