Central harbourfront site: Henderson’s US$6.5 billion bid 37 per cent higher than next best offer

Henderson’s unit, Pacific Gate Development, paid a record HK$50.8 billion for the New Central Harbourfront Commercial Site 3

The runner-up bid HK$37.1 billion, the government said without revealing the name of the company

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Henderson Land Development last month won the tender for Hong Kong’s most expensive commercial land parcel, paying a record HK$50.8 billion for a harbourfront plot in Central. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 6:30am, 9 Dec 2021

Henderson Land Development paid an eye-watering HK$13.7 billion (US$1.75 billion), or 37 per cent more than the next best bid, for a harbourfront plot in Central last month.

Pacific Gate Development, a unit of Henderson had bid a record HK$50.8 billion to bag a 50-year land grant for the New Central Harbourfront Commercial Site 3 in front of the old General Post Office and next to the International Finance Centre.

Only two of the six bids, including Henderson’s, met the reserve price for the 516,316 square feet site, while all proposed designs passed the requirement, the Development Bureau said in a statement on Wednesday.

The government had adopted a “two-envelope” approach for the Central harbourfront site to put a cap on land prices. It was meant to take into account the merits of the design as well as the highest price.

While the statement did not mention the name of the runner-up, the bid came in at HK$37.1 billion and its overall score was 84.86, about 15 points lower than Henderson’s.

The government only released the runner-up’s design, which called for erecting four blocks towards the harbourfront.

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