Chiway rebrands and launches new strategy

The group’s detour into other non-residential assets is evidence of a trend that Chinese developers are venturing into alternative assets ahead of a possible cooling in the housing markets.

“CWG plans to have 10 Australian projects underway concurrently over the next five years, and to seek opportunities for investment in high-quality hospitality, commercial and mixed-use properties,” said the group’s chairman and co-founder, Kevin Qian.

“We hope to actively collaborate with Australia’s leading educational and research institutions and invest in the local education sector, including K-12 international schools and the local tertiary education market.”

CWG Development chief executive Ying Rao, who is based in Sydney, added: “By 2030 NSW will have an estimated 213,000 more children who need state-of-the-art education to be competitive on a global stage.”

The group told The Australian Financial Review it would maintain its residential operations and add another four or five housing projects to its seven in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane because “Australian housing markets are still very healthy” even if they cooled.

“From a developer’s perspective, a slowdown is expected. You can’t expect to grow at such speeds forever. I think the growth will always be there, but not at the same pace [as the last few years],” Mr Qian said.

In the Sydney CBD the company will also look at residential conversions or hotels. Other suburbs of interest are those with good transport access, including St Leonards, Epping and Ryde.

In Melbourne house-and-land projects will be a priority, as is its joint venture relationship with Property Solutions in Brisbane. It claims to be open to additional joint ventures in other cities.

Analysts say the most interesting change for CWG is its plans to build schools, student accommodation and tourism properties as well as develop masterplans and new suburbs.

“We have big school development expertise developed [in China] over 20 years, so we will use make it our expertise here too,” Mr Qian said.

He said the group is exploring opportunities in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast, particularly near Griffith University. The CQG team also recently visited the Blue Mountains to investigate hotel or resort opportunities.

“We will also keep an eye on Central Coast. We hope to develop hotels, resorts, outdoor or sports properties, golf courses. We will even consider building hotel management training institutions, and bring some of that expertise we have in China and Singapore over here,” he said.

Maintaining the pace of development and Australia’s “guarded” approach to foreign development are the biggest possible drags on projected expansion, Mr Qian said.

“I remembered coming here 20 years ago and saw [the congested] Pacific Highway. And it’s still the same now,” he said.

“I think Sydney needs to speed up in its development, mainly by attracting more private capital into infrastructure provisions and streamlining its approval system. The trains are also very slow and need investments to keep up with its population growth.”