Real estate developer Yaakov Engel is expanding his business ventures in the Far East with the entry to Vietnam. Engel's privately-held real estate company EngelInvest Group, of which Engel holds 72%, and which is managed by Alon Avdani, will invest in three projects with a total of 9,000 high-end apartments in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), the largest city in Vietnam. The projects, which will consist of 960,000 square meters of built-up space, will be completed in several stages at a total cost of $1.1 billion. The company expects $1.6 billion in proceeds from the projects.
In the first stage, $450 million will invested in building 400,000 square meters of residential properties, with proceeds estimated at $650 million. Engel told "Globes" today that the projects required shareholder equity of around 30%, so EngelInvest and its partners are providing $135 million in equity for the projects, of which EngelInvest itself is providing 80%, or over $100 million. All three projects are being built on land approved for building and work on them is expected to commence simultaneously in early 2009. Two of the projects are being built in partnership with subsidiaries of local banks, and the third with a local developer.
