Forte buys Shanghai residential project for $328 mln

HONG KONG, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Shanghai Forte Land Co Ltd said it bought a high-end residential property in Shanghai for $328 million.

In January, two sources told Reuters that Forte was in the final stages of talks to buy 'Shanghai Garden Plaza' from Goldman Sachs.

Forte will wholly own the project, Shanghai Garden Plaza, located at Xinjing Town, Changning District with a gross floor area of 97,227 square metres, the company said in a statement late on Wednesday.

But Forte did not disclose the identity of the seller.

Shares of Forte jumped 3.0 percent to HK$2.06 by 0247 GMT after trading resumed on Thursday morning following the statement. They outperformed the broader market which rose 1.3 percent.

The deal shows the company's confidence in long-term development of the property market in Shanghai, Forte Chairman Fan Wei said in the statement.

'The group will closely monitor the market and continue to accelerate the development of existing projects,' he said.

It will increase quality land reverve in a prudent manner and get ready for future developments, it added.

China has been trying to curb a surge in property prices after they rose strongly last year as the world's third-largest economy expanded from Beijing's stimulus measures.

Some foreign investors have been active in China's property market are now watching closely as the government is deploying credit tightening and other measures to rein in runaway prices for fears of a bubble forming.

The property investment arm of Morgan Stanley is in talks to sell a Chinese apartment complex to a unit of Singapore's Keppel Land, sources closed to the deal told Retuers in February.

(Reporting by Alison Leung; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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