Country Garden mulls $10 billion Meriton foray

As previously foreshadowed, Country Garden is ­sizing up buying Meriton from the 82 year old billionaire Harry Triguboff.

But the talks are still very early, given what the boss of one of China’s bigger property ­developers has told the Australian Financial Review.

“We get along very well. We have talked about how we can expand and progress Country Garden’s ­development in Australia,” Country Garden Australia chief executive Johnson Zhang said in an interview.

He said a good business relationship exists between the two men, known as “guanxi” in Mandarin.

“It is still too early to make any ­definitive comments on the Meriton sale. [There is] a long way to go to confirm the sale and the price,” Zhang said.

“But when we meet he talks about selling his company. And if Mr Triguboff wants to sell Meriton, he would want to ensure that it is in the hands of someone who will look after it and grow it.”

“As for the $10 billion, well that’s Mr Triguboff’s words,” Zhang said.

“To determine if that is a good price anyone would have to run a detailed series of valuations to determine the value of this private company.

“What he says in public may not be the actual amount in the end.

“Meriton doesn’t have public ­information so we cannot comment whether $10 billion is good or not.”

In Chinese, Zhang speaks of Triguboff’s friendship very highly.

“There is a saying, ‘qing chu yu lan’ which means the student has the ­potential to achieve greater from what the teacher has already done,” he told the AFR's Su-Lin Tan.

“He’s my senior and he is teaching me a lot about ­property ­development in Australia.”

In June, Country Garden was revealed as the likely suitor.

The Chinese property development company bought their first Australian development site in late 2013 at North Ryde. 

Country Garden is a property development company based in Guangdong Province, China, owned by Yang Guoqiang's family. It focuses on building high-end residential property.

Founded in 1992 and listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange since 2007, it is controlled by China’s richest heiress, Yang Huiyan.

Their newly released Ryde Garden development (pictured above) is a trio of buildings each have its own rooftop garden.

They are for sale through CPM Realty agent Sam Elbanna and JLL with a 2017 completion date, subject to final council approval.