Daiwa House Industry Launches Landed Housing Business in Malaysia

OSAKA, Japan, June 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Daiwa House Industry Co., Ltd. announced on June 11 that it entered into a business partnership with Malaysia's top property developer, Sunway Berhad (hereinafter, Sunway) (*1) the same day to collaborate on the development and sales of prefabricated landed houses. To this effect, we have established a joint venture company, Daiwa Sunway Development (hereinafter, DSD).

In summer 2015, DSD will begin construction of a total of 100 landed houses in Iskandar Malaysia (IM), located in the southern region of Johor, the second largest state by population in Malaysia. These houses will be constructed on land spanning approximately 5.3 ha within the Sunway Iskandar Project, a development zone within IM. In Japanese terms, this is equivalent to approximately 16,000 tsubo or roughly the size of the Tokyo Dome (*2). Sales are scheduled to begin in 2016.

Since 1964, we have constructed seven plants owned by Japanese companies in Malaysia. In April 2012, we set our sights on the landed housing business in Malaysia and established an office in Kuala Lumpur, where we began research and development on industrialized housing that is suitable for Malaysia's unique tropical rainforest climate. In October 2013, we constructed a prototype prefabricated house (lightweight steel-reinforced frames) optimized for the Malaysian market in Sunway Eastwood, a residential development area that belongs to Sunway and is located in Selangor, a state near Kuala Lumpur. The prototype was completed in March 2014. Tours by local customers have been conducted and feedback was used to conduct evaluations and validations on prefabricated housing.

Our decision to launch full-scale operations is based on the confidence in our ability to provide housing that appeals to Malaysian customers. This confidence founded on our landed housing knowledge cultivated through our experience in Japan combined with validations using the prototype house in Malaysia.

In the future, we will expand operations beyond Malaysia as we strive to construct and sell landed houses in countries throughout the ASEAN region, including Thailand and Indonesia.

(*1) Malaysian property and construction company established in 1974. Expanded from a mining company to become a group comprised of 12 business segments (property, construction, travel, retail, leisure, etc.). Total group employees: 12,000. A conglomerate with a total market value of approximately 200 billion yen.

(*2) The size of Tokyo Dome is approximately 47,000 square meters.

Main points of joint venture

  1. Collaboration project with Sunway, Malaysia's largest developer

  2. Landed housing suitable for Malaysia's climate and natural environment

  3. Sunway Iskandar Project

  4. Malaysian national project: Iskandar Project

About Daiwa House Industry Co, Ltd.

Daiwa House Industry has expanded its operations as a pioneer of the housing industry in Japan for more than half a century, offering single-family houses, rental housing, condominiums, commercial facilities, and general business-use buildings. To date, we have supplied 1.5 million single-family houses, over 30,000 commercial facilities, and over 6,000 medical/nursing care facilities.

Going forward, we will continue to promote our business operations overseas, leveraging the strengths we have cultivated such as competitive technologies and product lines. In addition, we have entered new business fields including environment-friendly energy, robotics, and agriculture and are putting our full efforts into expanding our business operations, not only in Japan but also in the global market. The company's President and COO is Naotake Ohno. It is headquartered in 3-3-5 Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka.

SOURCE Daiwa House Industry Co., Ltd.