An unidentified individual Wednesday paid 121 million yuan (US$18.3 million) to buy the 57th floor of an office building in Jing'an District, making it the most expensive office in Shanghai.
The buyer paid 100,372 yuan per square meter for 1,205.52 square meters on the top floor of The Exchange SOHO, which is owned by SOHO China.
The price was higher than the building's average of 75,000 yuan per square meter. The office on the 57th floor is currently leased to a management firm at 12 yuan per square meter per day.
"We are happy, but we also see how heavy the pressure of inflation is," Pan Shiyi, CEO of SOHO China, wrote in his micro-blog after the auction.
A company spokesperson said: "With investment in residential real estate now under tight restrictions, investors with large capital are turning to commercial properties to hedge against fast inflation."
The buyer was from Anhui Province, according to Sina.com. But SOHO China declined to reveal the person's identity for "privacy reasons."
The price increased from 10 million yuan to more than 100 million yuan after 34 rounds of bids in 15 minutes, the company said in a statement. More than 10 bidders, mainly from the Yangtze Delta region, participated in the auction.
The office building on Nanjing Road W was acquired by SOHO China last August from the real estate arm of Morgan Stanley for 2.45 billion yuan. The building has already generated 3.83 billion yuan in revenue for the company.
A recent report from DTZ, an international real estate services provider, showed that the commercial real estate investment market on the Chinese mainland remained the most liquid in the Asia-Pacific region in the third quarter this year.
