Real estate girds for growth - Quest International Ltd

Owning landbanks in India and Sri Lanka aside, Quest International Ltd's (QI) property assets nearer home look set to bloom as 2010 unfolds.

To promote eco-tourism in Malaysia, QI spent RM50 million in 2006 to take over the development of the 30 percent completed 167-acre beachfront Endau-Rompin Resort in Kuala Rompin, Pahang. It is now working on the first phase, the 200-room Prana Rompin boutique resort, with completion planned for Q3 2010.

The entire project, with a gross development value of over RM1 billion, will span seven years and include a marina, signature villas and a spa to be run by Amezcua Wellness Centre (AWC), a QI subsidiary and award winning health spa operator. Its target markets include buyers from India, Singapore and the Middle East.

"Endau Rompin has been under-marketed. We will tap on the scenic view of the Rompin river flowing from the 200 million-year-old Rompin Forest Reserve into the South China Sea," says QI's property arm Wawasan QI Properties Sdn Bhd director Kuna Senathirajah.

In Selangor, Wawasan QI Properties bought Tower C, one of the three towers at the PJ8 commercial and residential development in Petaling Jaya, for RM60 million to house all the operations of QI's companies in Malaysia.

Commencing March, the staff at its current office at the Amcorp complex in PJ will move into the new operational headquarters in stages.

Kuna says Wawasan QI Properties is also thinking of developing hotels and office buildings in Section 14 of PJ and Kelana Jaya, and high-end niche residential units in the Ampang Hilir and U Thant locales near Kuala Lumpur City Centre.

In Thailand, QI ventured into Koh Samui in 2005. It renovated a five-star 36-room resort and renamed it Prana Resorts & Spa, the world's first international hotel chain to embrace vegetarianism and home to the world-class all-vegetarian Amala Restaurant.

The resort, which also houses an AWC spa, runs on solar power, recycles greywater and donates food scraps  to local farmers for use as fertilisers. It's scheduled to be fully operational in Q4 2010.

QI also invested in a number of suites in Patong Tower Condominium at the beachside holiday haven of Patong for use by thousands of its vacation club members.

And the latest is, at the just concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Port of Spain, QI Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tourist Development Corp of Trinidad & Tobago for the development of a hotel, tourism and waterfront project.