Singapore Group Buys Royal Wharf Site in London

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Ballymore Group has sold the Royal Wharf development site to Singapore-based Oxley Holdings Limited, which is planning to develop an "entirely new district for London." 

Oxley intends to develop more than 4,000 residential units on the 40-acre site, along with commercial, retail, leisure and educational facilities, the company said in the statement. The site is described as "largest London mixed-use site since Battersea Power Station."

Oxley agreed to pay £200 million ($320 million) for the site at the Royal Docks on the banks of the River Thames, according to Bloomberg. 

"Royal Wharf is an outstanding opportunity and offers a blank canvas to create something very special for London," Oxley chief executive, Ching Chiat Kwong, said in the announcement. "It has over 500 meters of river frontage with a Crossrail station one kilometer away."

Dublin-based Ballymore Group, which has several developments in London, is looking to repay debt, according to media reports. In May, the developer sold London's Old Spitalfields Market to New York-based Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp.

Oxley's purchase is the latest in a recent surge of Asian investment in London. Earlier this week Singapore-based Pontiac Land Group made a $300 million investment to revive a New York tower designed by Jean Nouvel.

Last month, Chinese property developer Greenland Holdings announced investments plans for London property. In the summer, Dalian Wanda Group purchased a London site for a £700 million hotel and residential tower project.

"This type of deal is exactly why I spent six days meeting businessmen and officials in China banging the drum for the capital, and it is further evidence of the colossal appetite of developers from the Far East and elsewhere to invest in London," the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, said.