Daewoo building price may break office record

Eyeing a record high-price for an office building in Seoul, Park Chang-kyoo, chief executive of Daewoo Engineering and Construction Co., said yesterday that the Daewoo building in Namdaemun will be sold for at least 1 trillion won ($1.1 billion).
“Kumho Asiana Group [the owner of Daewoo Engineering and Construction] has set a principle of not selling the Daewoo building unless it earns 1 trillion at minimum,” he told reporters. “A total of 19 companies have participated in the bidding process. One foreign company has presented over 1 trillion won, the top price, while four foreign and domestic firms, including Macquarie Bank and Kookmin Bank, have offered amounts close to 1 trillion won.”
Kumho Asiana acquired Daewoo in November last year for 6.42 trillion won. The builder was spun off from the now-defunct Daewoo Group in 2000.
“At the point of Daewoo being taken over by Kumho Asiana Group, we estimated the value of the Daewoo building at 800 billion won, but the price has gone up to some degree,” said Park. He said the firm will end the sales process by August, and that remodeling the building is expected to cost over 200 billion won. Daewoo is likely to do the remodeling and be paid by Daewoo Engineering. The previous high for a Seoul office tower was 930 billion won in a 2004 deal for the Seoul Finance Center in southern Seoul, formerly known as Star Tower, which was sold by the American Lone Star investment fund to the Government of Singapore Investment Corp.

By Seo Ji-eun Staff Writer [spring@joongang.co.kr]