CJ Olive Young Corp., South Korea’s top beauty store chain, has been given priority rights to buy an office building in Seoul for about 680 billion won ($472.5 million), beating other bidders including global real estate investor BentallGreenOak (BGO), sources said on Wednesday.
KB Asset Management, which put KDB Life Tower on the market, and managers of the sale – NAI Korea and Colliers Korea – selected CJ Olive Young as the preferred bidder for the building near Seoul Station, according to the investment banking industry sources.
Five bidders including CJ Olive Young and BGO participated in the tender opened on Feb. 11.
CJ Olive Young was considered the front-runner as it leases about 40% of the rental spaces in KDB Life Tower, a building with 30 above-ground floors and nine basement floors completed in September 2013. The building is linked with Seoul Station through an underpass.
The office tower with a total floor area of 80,000 square meters has anchor tenants such as KDB Life Insurance Co. and foreign companies.
KB Asset Management bought the building for about 425 billion won in 2018.
KOREA INVESTMENT & SECURITIES TO BUY DOOSAN TOWER
Separately, Korea Investment & Securities Co. is set to buy Doosan Tower in Seoul’s central business district (CBD).
South Korean real estate investment firm Mastern Investment Management Co. picked the securities firm as the preferred bidder for the first major office building up for auction among commercial properties in the CBD this year, investment banking industry sources said on Tuesday.
Korea Investment & Securities was known to have proposed low-900 billion won, falling short of an initially estimated value of 1 trillion won, according to the sources.
Doosan Tower is a 34-story building with seven underground floors, covering a land area of 9,410.7 square meters and a total floor area of 122,630.3 square meters.
Constructed in 1998, Doosan Tower has become a landmark building in the Dongdaemun fashion district. Currently, the building houses Doosan Group offices; Hyundai DF Co., Hyundai Department Store’s duty-free shop; and Doota Mall, a Doosan shopping mall.
Mastern bought the building for 800 billion won in 2020 from Doosan Group.
By Gyeong-Jin Min
min@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.
