The Macau Court will attempt for a second time to auction off 36 real estate properties belonging to former Suncity Group Chairman Alvin Chau following a lack of bidders during a previous auction.
IAG reported last July that the 36 properties belonging to Chau and Grupo Tai Tak Lei Limitada were to be auctioned off by the court in a process overseen by requesting executor U Lai Wan on 11 September last year.
However, according to the latest information from the Macau Court, these 36 real estates have recently been put up for auction again at the same price as last year’s public sale.
Among the 36 properties are 31 parking spaces with auction prices ranging from MOP$1,133,000 (US$140,630) to MOP$1,184,500 (US$147,000), while the remaining five are commercial properties with prices ranging from MOP$55,517,000 (US$6.9 million) to MOP$176,748,000 (US$21.9 million). The total value is approximately MOP$600 million (US$74.5 million).
The properties are located on Estrada Coronel Nicolau de Mesquita and Beco da Perola in Taipa, in a building called Caesar Fortune. The auction will take place this Tuesday 20 February.
Chau was sentenced to 18 years in prison on 19 January 2023, with his conviction upheld on appeal to the Court of Second Instance, which ruled that he and his fellow defendants must also pay more than MOP$25.5 billion (US$3.2 billion) in damages to the government of the Macau SAR.
The case has now been appealed to the Court of Final Appeal, with Chau and the other defendants still detained in Coloane Prison.
The Macau property market is currently in a downturn, with the number and price of property transactions hitting record lows in recent times. According to the information from the Financial Services Bureau, the number of property transactions in the first half of January this year was only 105, which is 93% fewer than during the same period in 2019.
In September, the Macau government put two pieces of land up for public auction – just the second time the government has put land up for auction in the past decade – but only one bid was received with the second land parcel failing to sell.
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