Chin Hin buys 2.6-acre Jalan Sultan Ismail site from YNH for RM455 million — about RM4,000 psf

YNH Property Bhd is selling a 2.61-acre freehold parcel on Jalan Sultan Ismail in central Kuala Lumpur to Chin Hin Group Property Bhd for RM455 million. The conditional sale and purchase agreement was signed on 8 July 2026.

The site sits opposite the Concorde Hotel, on the Bukit Nanas edge of the Golden Triangle. It is held under Geran 75552, Lot 20002, Section 57, Town and District of Kuala Lumpur, and measures about 113,700 sq ft.

At RM455 million, that is roughly RM4,000 per sq ft.

The seller is YNH Land Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of YNH Property. The buyer is Chin Hin Property (JSI) Sdn Bhd, 70%-owned by BKG Development Sdn Bhd, itself wholly owned by Chin Hin Group Property. M&A Securities Sdn Bhd advised on the deal.

How the RM455 million is being paid

• RM409,475,000 in cash
• 455,000 redeemable preference shares in the buyer, worth RM45.5 million
• 25,000 ordinary shares in the buyer, worth RM25,000 — giving YNH Land a 10% stake in the company that now holds the land

So YNH is not fully walking away. It keeps a tenth of the vehicle developing the site, alongside preference shares.

Chin Hin is funding its side with a RM318.5 million term loan and a RM91 million interest-free shareholder loan from EC Properties. That pushes Chin Hin Group Property's gearing from 0.66 to 1.25 times.

The number that should interest any landowner

YNH bought this land in July 2004 for RM109.87 million. It was carried in the accounts at an audited net book value of RM77.54 million as at 30 June 2025.

It is selling for RM455 million.

That is about 5.9 times its book value. Put on a per-square-foot basis, the land sat on the balance sheet at roughly RM680 psf and is leaving at roughly RM4,000 psf.

This is the single most useful thing in the filing. Book value is an accounting artefact — original cost, less whatever has been written off, sometimes decades ago. It is not an estimate of worth and was never meant to be one. Any owner holding land bought in the 1990s or 2000s is almost certainly carrying it at a number that says nothing about what it would fetch today.

Independent valuer Henry Butcher Malaysia put the land's market value at RM500 million as at 6 July 2026, using the income approach by residual method together with the comparison approach. Against that, RM455 million is a 9% discount to valuation — worth noting, and explained below.

After deducting book value, RM32.12 million of development charges and related costs, professional fees and real property gains tax, YNH expects a net pro forma gain of RM305.93 million.

Why the discount — read the seller's balance sheet

YNH is not selling from a position of strength. Before the deal it carried RM405.97 million of borrowings against RM22.4 million of cash and deposits.

Of the cash proceeds, RM375 million goes straight to redeeming perpetual securities and RM34.48 million to settling real property gains tax. Almost the entire cash component is spoken for before it arrives.

Group managing director Yu Kai Leun framed it as capital recycling, saying the sale lets the group realise value from a strategic asset while strengthening its overall financial flexibility and balance sheet discipline. That is a fair description. It is also a reminder that a seller with a redemption deadline does not get the valuation figure — that is what the 9% gap is.

The market read it the same way. YNH shares rose 8.2% to 33 sen on the news, valuing the company at about RM175 million — less than half what it is selling this one parcel for. Chin Hin Group Property eased 1 sen to RM1.06.

What Chin Hin is actually buying

Not just land. The parcel comes with an approved development order carrying a plot ratio of 15.99 — and that approval runs only until June 2027.

That is a large part of why the site is worth RM4,000 psf rather than considerably less. A plot ratio of nearly 16 on a freehold Golden Triangle parcel is not something a buyer can assume it could obtain afresh, and the clock on the existing approval is a real constraint on the buyer's timetable.

Chin Hin plans a mixed-use development of serviced apartments, a hotel and retail with an estimated RM3.6 billion GDV, targeting a Q2 2027 launch and Q2 2034 completion. YNH's own earlier scheme for the site, Menara YNH, had been pitched at an RM4 billion GDV.

Executive chairman Datuk Wira Chiau Haw Choon said opportunities to acquire a freehold development site of this scale and location in the city's Golden Triangle are exceptionally rare.

The read-across

Three things carry beyond this one transaction:

1. Approvals are worth money. An in-hand development order with a high plot ratio is not paperwork — it is a large share of the price. It also expires. If you hold land with approvals, know their expiry date. 2. Your book value is not your value. A 5.9x gap between carrying amount and price is not unusual for land held for twenty years. It is the norm. 3. Distress shows up as a discount, not a collapse. A pressured seller with a RM500 million valuation still got RM455 million. The penalty for needing to sell was about 9% — which is worth knowing both if you are the one selling and if you are the one waiting for a bargain.