The Acquisition of a Property in Hanoi Through Unity of Philosophy

In December 2014, Daibiru acquired the CornerStone Building in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. The seller was a medium-sized Vietnamese bank, and the president of the bank, after hearing that a Japanese real estate company was managing such a superb building as Saigon Tower, came in person to make the sale. The CornerStone Building was located next to the Ministry of Finance offices in Hoàn Kiếm, a small area just 5.3 km² in size in the Hanoi Central Business District (CBD) with a concentration of Vietnamese government offices, various countries’ embassies, and foreign companies. The seller had built the CornerStone Building to house its head office and rental offices, but at the time, Vietnamese banks were rushing to sell off non-core businesses due to non-performing loans, and this building was included. However, the seller did not want to sell the building to a real estate company for resale, as it planned to continue using the building as its head office after the sale and was looking for a buyer who would manage the building with care as a long-term landlord. Here again, Daibiru’s philosophy of managing from a long-term perspective that valued mutual trust with tenants bore fruit with the purchase of the building. The CornerStone Building currently leads the Hanoi market as the number-one building in Hanoi.

The two buildings firmly established Daibiru’s position in Vietnam, and in 2020, Daibiru received a proposal from a Vietnamese businessman for joint development of an office building in Hanoi. After hearing a report evaluating the two current buildings, the proposal had Daibiru taking the lead on all aspects of building development, including design, construction, and operation. The location was in Starlake, a district on the west side of Ho Tay Lake, about 6 km northwest of downtown Hanoi. The area showed great promise as Hanoi’s new CBD, and the majority of Vietnam’s central government ministries had plans to relocate there. Ten years after first entering the Vietnamese market, Daibiru’s business in Vietnam continues to make great strides as it takes on increasingly challenging office building development projects.