Gold Coast property: Major management rights deal on Coast

The owners of the management-rights to some of the nation’s tallest towers have locked up another Gold Coast icon in their latest deal.

A QUIET newcomer to the Gold Coast management-rights business, one which already has two of the nation’s tallest towers locked up, has slipped into town and picked up a ‘Ralan’.

Arise Hotels has bought the management rights to the Ruby tower on the northern side of Surfers Paradise from receivers to some of the assets of William O’Dwyer’s failed Ralan group.

The deal isn’t the first on the Gold Coast for the Brisbane-based Arise, which normally focuses on buying management-rights while, or before, construction is under way.

It did such a deal on the Chinese-built Northcliffe Residences on the Surfers Paradise beachfront, which was completed last year, and it also has secured the rights to the yet-to-be-started Marine Quarter project overlooking the Broadwater Tourist Park at Southport’s northern end.

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The Ruby Tower in Surfers Paradise, built by the failed Ralan Group. Picture: Quentin Tod

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Arise is the trading business for Song Properties, which is owned by 34-year-old Michael Song and family.

It has built up a portfolio of managed properties, the bulk of them in Brisbane but it also has a Melbourne presence.

Michael and Arise have what might be called reach-for-the sky ambitions – they own the rights to the Australia 108 tower in Melbourne, due to be finished later this year.

The Singaporean-built 101-level tower, topped out and with the highest floor height in Australia, will have 1103 apartments.

That means the letting pool should be quite a buxom one and, depending on its size, Arise could be paying around $15 million for the rights.

That might not quite match the amount, never disclosed, that Arise paid last year for the rights to sparkling new 90-floor Brisbane building Skytower – it has 1138 apartments.

The figure that Arise has paid for the Ruby rights, sold after a drawn-out tender process, has not been revealed by the receivers at Deloittes.

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Arise secured the rights of the yet-to-be-started Marine Quarter project overlooking the Broadwater Tourist Park

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Resort Brokers, the group that handled the marketing and which sold Arise the Australia 108 rights, isn’t saying boo.

Nor is Michael Song, who was born in China and moved to Adelaide on his own as a 16-year-old, finished school there, and moved to QUT in Brisbane.

He helped pay his uni fees by starting his own cleaning company, wasn’t chuffed with the way some of the big apartment buildings were operated, and decided he could do better.

His first rights, with 63 apartments under management, were bought in 2012.

Today Michael and family control, or are buying, the rights to some 20 buildings and are involved in both short-term hotel-like letting and residential apartment management.

Over the past few years they appear to have spent, and committed to spending, tens of millions of dollars and Arise is managing some 8000 apartments.

New buy Ruby has 230 titles but the number under management hasn’t been disclosed.

An observer says Michael and Arise have become very adept at improving the performance of the properties they manage, and hence the value of the rights they own.

He says the growth in what might be termed its ‘equity’, enables it to borrow to help fund new deals.

Whether any are brewing on the Gold Coast remains to be seen.