Morgan Stanley’s Asian spending spree continued yesterday with the Won960bn ($1bn) agreement to buy the headquarters of Daewoo Engineering & Construction in Seoul. Financial Times


The Daewoo headquarters is a 23-storey tower in the city centre totalling about 1.4m sq ft.

The purchase will be the biggest single property deal in South Korea, eclipsing the Won930bn purchase of Star Tower by GIC, the government of Singapore’s investment arm, in 2004.

Morgan Stanley is understood to have outbid Macquarie and Kookmin Bank to secure the property.

Morgan Stanley has this year bought 13 Japanese hotels for $2.4bn from ANA; paid $5.4bn for Australia’s Investa Property Group; and bought the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay in Japan.