bea appoints agency for tender of building stake Bank of East Asia has appointed Jones Lang LaSalle to handle the tender for its 75 per cent stake in the United Chinese Bank Building in Central. The tender will close on August 8. The 45-year-old building, at the junction of Des Voeux Road Central and Douglas Street, has a gross floor area of 83,149 square feet, of which the bank owns 61,168 sqft. The buyer has the option of leasing back the retail portion to the bank after acquiring the property. 'As the remaining 25 per cent ownership is singly owned by another individual, the building has potential for redevelopment and refurbishment,' Jones Lang LaSalle investments department head Warren Liu said. Yvonne Liu china southern becomes skyteam's asian partner China Southern Airlines yesterday signed up to become the Skyteam Alliance's second Asian partner. It is expected to gain full membership late next year. Joining Skyteam, the world's No2 alliance by passenger volume, is expected to speed the expansion of China Southern's international network ahead of the 2008 delivery of its first 555-seat Airbus A380, an aircraft not suitable for the mainland's domestic market. The airline will become the 11th member of Skyteam, which controls about 22 per cent of global air traffic. Russell Barling chemicals firm builds bio-refinery in gansu Agriculture and chemicals conglomerate YaSheng Group is investing more than US$100 million to build an ethanol bio-refinery in Gansu province in the hope of growing the alternative fuel market in the mainland. The company said the pilot bio-fuel project would start construction at the end of this year and commence commercial production in 2008. The bio-refinery will have an initial annual production of 350,000 tonnes of raw ethanol. YaSheng forecast annual income from the project to reach US$225 million and create yearly tax breaks of up to US$43.75 million. Bien Perez falling margins fail to dent fu ji food profits Fu Ji Food and Catering Services Holdings reported a 52 per cent increase in net profit to 251 million yuan for the financial year to March while turnover soared 75.2 per cent to 796.75 million yuan. Profit margin dropped from 62 per cent to 57 per cent, hit by an average 5 per cent decline in food order prices. It proposed a final dividend of 7.8 cents per share, up from 3.8 cents per share. The group's capital expenditure reached 872 million yuan last financial year, a rise of 109.4 per cent from a year ago, and it plans to spend 500 million yuan this year, mainly to build provincial processing centres. Kandy Wong coscon seals 425m yuan vessel deal with parent Cosco Container Lines (Coscon) has entered a sale and charter-back arrangement for two vessels with parent Cosco Group. Most of the 425.65 million yuan in proceeds will be used to repay bank loans. The vessels, built in 1989 and 1990, are capable of carrying 2,716 teu (20-foot equivalent units) each, generating income of eight million yuan and 32 million yuan for Coscon last year. Coscon will charter back the vessels for 123,200 yuan per day. The annual caps payable to its parent for the following four years are 45.6 million yuan, 90 million yuan, 90 million yuan and 44 million yuan. Charlotte So regional carriers thrive on robust travel demand Demand for business and leisure-class travel around the Asia-Pacific last month continued to drive growth for the region's carriers, which saw passenger volumes expand 4 per cent year on year. The 17 member carriers in the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) carried more than 10.53 million passengers last month. Cargo traffic grew 3.3 per cent. The airlines' aggregate passenger load factor rose 2.1 percentage points for the month to 71.2 per cent. In the first five months, AAPA members carried 53.88 million passengers, up a comparative 5 per cent. The figures do not include data from mainland carriers. Russell Barling bochk to extend mortgage offer for three months Bank of China (Hong Kong) will extend its floating-rate mortgage offer for three more months as local interest rates are expected to increase later this week. The lender said its offer, which links mortgage rates to the Hong Kong interbank rate (Hibor), would be extended to the end of September. Based on the one-month Hibor yesterday, mortgage rates under this offer would be 4.97 per cent. 'BOCHK has lost a lot of market share in new mortgages over the past few months, especially after HSBC launched an aggressive offer in February,' a banker said. Maria Chan
