The Edge Malaysia has reported that Johor Bahru City Square mall was bought back by Robert Kuok’s Singapore-based Allgreen Properties Ltd from Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund’s GIC Real Estate Pte Ltd. in May 2024. The acquisition was claimed to have been made eight weeks prior to the original report being published.
After the acquisition, Kuok Group essentially owns a 76% share of the mall through two companies.
Kuok Group has returned to JBCS as a significant shareholder with Allgreen’s acquisition. Johor Bahru City Council, Kuok Brothers’ Pelangi Group, Lee Brothers, and Kuok Brothers were the purported buyers of JBCS from GIC RE in 2004. GIC RE reportedly paid nearly RM500 million for the stake at the time, according to sources.
Allgreen’s website already lists JBCS as one of its retail assets. The company describes the property as being located minutes away from the customs and immigration checkpoint (JB Sentral/CIQ), and that it is a six-storey mall that offers over 1,250 parking bays.
The mall also hosts more than 200 retailers, including mmCineplexes, H&M, Decathlon, Uniqlo, Popular, Queen Karaoke and Mr DIY.
Johdaya Karya Sdn Bhd is the owner of the mall. Searching the Companies Commission of Malaysia website for Johdaya Karya reveals that 30% of the company is owned by Merit Properties Sdn Bhd and 70% is owned by Aldertree Properties Sdn Bhd, a company that was incorporated on 23 January 2024. Kuok Brothers Sdn Bhd owns 25% of Aldertree and Allgreen Properties (Malaysia) Pte Ltd owns 75% of it.
Ng Mui Kit, Tan Siew Min, Yap Mei Leng, and Tho Leong Chye are the directors of Johdaya. The mayor of Johor Bahru, Datuk Mohd Noorazman Osman, is also a board member. 15% of the mall is owned by Majlis Bandaraya Johor Bahru. MBJB owns 50% of Merit Properties, the company that holds the stake.
The remaining shareholders of Merit Properties are listed as I&P Multi Resources Sdn Bhd (20%), Kuok Brothers Sdn Bhd (20%) and Lee Rubber (Selangor) Sdn Bhd (10%).
According to the most recent financial data available, Johdaya reported RM43.33 million in net profit and RM39.46 million in revenue for the fiscal year that concluded on 31 March 2023. RM1.03 billion in total assets and RM120.13 million in total liabilities were held by the company as of the same date. It had also made RM747.08 million in profits overall.
Since the 1980s, Allgreen has been involved in property development; initially, it was a branch of Kuok (Singapore) Ltd. It delisted from the Singapore Exchange in August 2011 after Brookvale Investments Pte Ltd, another company in the Kuok Group, acquired it. It had been listed there since May 1999.
 mall, which it sold to Singapore sovereign wealth fund's GIC Real Estate Pte Ltd){kind=link}