SKS Group and MB World Group Bhd have bought the hotel block and four residential blocks above Capital City Mall in Tampoi, Johor Bahru, for about RM50 million, The Edge reported on 7 November 2026, citing a press statement and comments made the day before. The retail podium stays with its current owner.
The plan is a 16-storey, four-star hotel with 315 keys under an international brand, plus four serviced apartment blocks of 15 to 18 storeys with 1,320 units of 392 sq ft to 1,178 sq ft. The two companies put the preliminary gross development value, or GDV, the total expected sales, at RM680 million: RM180 million for the hotel and RM500 million for the apartments. SKS will develop and keep the hotel. MB World will build and sell the homes. The two share directors but will not form a joint venture company.
The purchase price is 7.4% of that GDV (RM50 million divided by RM680 million). Divide the RM500 million by 1,320 units and the average comes to about RM379,000 a unit. That is arithmetic, not a price list. MB World says selling prices will be announced once it holds its advertising permit and developer's licence.
Those towers have a history. Capital World, the Singapore-listed developer of the RM1.8 billion Capital City project, closed the mall in February 2020 and sought court protection from creditors, and the sum owed to creditors was estimated at about RM400 million that year, the NST reported in 2023. Mustafa then bought 591 unsold retail units for RM368 million. What remained in that 2023 report was a 315-room hotel, a tower of 630 serviced suites and 690 serviced apartments across three blocks, the same 315 keys and, added together, the same 1,320 homes now in the new owners' plan.
Rummah News' view: the date matters more than the price
This is our editorial view. At 7.4% of GDV, the entry price is not where this deal will be won or lost. Getting five towers up on top of a mall is. The companies say construction will start in the first quarter of 2027 at the earliest and finish by the end of 2028, which leaves less than two years if the start date holds. We would want to see that timetable tested before anyone treats it as firm.
The product is also a hard sell. EdgeProp's Property Market Report for the first half of 2026 put unsold serviced apartments in Johor at 13% of supply, against 1.1% to 1.9% for condominiums in KL, Selangor and Johor, EdgeProp reported. Tampoi will be asked to absorb 1,320 more.
The reports we read leave three questions open: who sold the blocks, how much of the structures already stands, and whether anyone bought units in them under the old plan. Those are the first things a buyer should ask when sales open. The two groups also said they will rehabilitate an abandoned mixed-use project in Kota Kinabalu, which the report did not name.
Sources: The Edge, New Straits Times, EdgeProp.
