Hong Kong developer sells HK$538 million luxury mansion at a loss
HONG Kong developer Chuang's Consortium International is selling a luxury mansion in the upscale Deep Water Bay area at an almost 20 per cent discount, as it seeks cash in a fragile property market.
The house at 37 Island Road is being sold to Annex W Group, a British Virgin Islands vehicle owned by Wu Jingtao, for no more than HK$538 million (S$11.6 million), according to a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange late on Thursday.
Chuang's Consortium will record a loss of HK$143.2 million, mainly due to accounting treatment based on the market valuation rather than the cost of development, it said in the filing.
The sale would become the third-largest transaction for a new home in Hong Kong this year, after a HK$1 billion villa in the Mont Verra project and a HK$609 million penthouse at Mount Nicholson, according to property database EPRC.
Chuang's said the main reasons for the sale included a need to improve the group's liquidity, uncertainty in the Hong Kong property market and the global political environment, and thin transaction volumes for luxury property, according to the filing.
The developer, which specialises in high-end projects, is known for selling a mansion to mainland Chinese tycoon Chen Hongtian for more than HK$2 billion in 2016.
The house was seized after Chen defaulted on a loan, and was recently on the market for 60 per cent lower than its purchase price. BLOOMBERG
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
42 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Cook Islands PM decries New Zealand's ‘patronising' aid pause
Cook Islands PM Mark Brown defended his nation's ties with China, saying they did not 'compromise' its independence. PHOTO: AFP WELLINGTON - Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown on June 20 condemned 'patronising' neighbour New Zealand, which halted aid to the Pacific island nation after it signed a slew of deals with China. Major partner New Zealand has halted millions of dollars in aid to Cook Islands, citing a 'lack of consultation' over agreements struck with China in February. Self-governing Cook Islands has a 'free association' pact with New Zealand, its former colonial ruler which provides budgetary assistance as well as help on foreign affairs and defence. 'The relationship between the Cook Islands and New Zealand is defined by partnership, not paternalism,' Mr Brown said in a speech to Parliament. 'Decisions to unilaterally pause core sector support reflect a patronising approach inconsistent with modern partnership.' Mr Brown defended his nation's ties with China, saying they did not 'compromise' its independence, adding that no military or defence arrangements had been made. 'No debt commitments, no erosion of our national sovereignty,' he told Parliament. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon visited Beijing on June 20, where he was welcomed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. 'There are no historical grievances or fundamental conflicts of interest between China and New Zealand,' Mr Xi told Mr Luxon, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. The readout did not directly mention Beijing's relationship with the Cook Islands or Wellington's spat with its former colony. Mr Luxon meanwhile reaffirmed in a statement New Zealand's interest in the 'peace, security and prosperity of the Pacific'. 'Repair and restore trust' The Cook Islands caught New Zealand off guard when it signed a string of agreements with China covering deep-sea mining, regional cooperation and economic issues. A New Zealand government spokesperson said aid had been paused because of a 'lack of consultation' surrounding the agreements. New Zealand provided US$116 million (S$149.09 million) to Cook Islands over the past three years, according to government figures. It was due to make an US$11 million development payment in the coming months and would not consider resuming funding until the Cook Islands government took steps to 'repair the relationship and restore trust', the spokesperson added. China and the Cook Islands have both pushed back, with Beijing's foreign ministry saying on June 19 that the deals 'should not be interfered with'. Mr Brown added that the nation had been 'open and transparent'. China has looked to boost diplomatic, economic and security ties with Pacific Island nations in recent years, sowing unease among traditional regional powers the United States, Australia and New Zealand. AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Leaders of China, New Zealand discuss trade, Pacific security
Chinese President Xi Jinping and New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon shake hands at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China June 20, 2025. China Daily via REUTERS BEIJING/SYDNEY - The leaders of China and New Zealand discussed on Friday the role of trade in boosting ties, while New Zealand also pressed its interests for peace and security in the Pacific, government statements showed. President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met in the capital's Great Hall of the People as China's influence grows in the Pacific, challenging the traditionally stronger security foothold many Western nations have had there. On his first visit to China since taking office in November 2023, Luxon discussed the need for stability, less tension in the Indo-Pacific and New Zealand's "enduring support for Pacific-led priorities", his government said in a statement. Luxon's meeting with the leader of New Zealand's biggest trade partner was "constructive", he said in a post on X. "We discussed the depth of the New Zealand-China relationship - from trade and people-to-people ties to our shared global responsibilities," he said. "In a complex world, open dialogue is more important than ever." The remarks came after New Zealand aired concerns this year when Cook Islands, with which it has constitutional ties, signed pacts with China without first consulting it, including one for cooperation on the economy, infrastructure and seabed mining. Luxon also backed up the role of the Pacific Islands Forum, an inter-government body seeking to foster cooperation among Oceanic countries and territories. Without making specific reference to any issue, Xi called for both countries to seek common ground and view differences "accurately", state news agency Xinhua said. "There are no historical grudges or conflicts of interest between China and New Zealand, so we should respect each other, seek common ground," Xi told Luxon, it said, adding that both must accurately look at and tackle disagreements. During his four-day visit to the commercial hub of Shanghai and the capital, Beijing, Luxon has championed an agenda of boosting business, travel and education for New Zealand. MORE BUSINESS Xi also talked about deepening trade and investment ties, as well as scope to work on science and technology, climate change response and infrastructure along with education exchanges - echoing most of Luxon's goals. Luxon documented his meetings on Instagram, posting video messages to fellow citizens reinforcing his mission of getting "money into your back pocket". He clinched travel-related pacts and pushed New Zealand's tertiary education as well as its exports of meat, a key item of trade with China after dairy. Its exports to China were NZ$20.85 billion ($12.51 billion) in 2024, comprising goods worth NZ$17.75 billion and services of NZ$3.1 billion, the foreign ministry said on its website. Chinese tourists are New Zealand's third-largest group of international visitors, though official data show their numbers are still nearly a fifth lower than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. China Eastern Airlines will launch more flights with New Zealand from December, the New Zealand government said on Wednesday. Days before the visit, New Zealand unveiled a 12-month trial of visa waivers from November for Chinese passport holders arriving from Australia with valid visas from its neighbour. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Viewpoint: An EV revolution is happening in the heart of Opec
Drivers in Dubai are starting to pick electric vehicles over petrol-powered cars. PHOTO: AFP Viewpoint: An EV revolution is happening in the heart of Opec UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Think of the most important markets for electric vehicles (EVs) and you will have a list of the usual suspects: Norway, China, Germany, the United Kingdom. But Dubai? It seems improbable, but the second-biggest exporter in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) deserves a place alongside those other markets. Fully-electric vehicles comprised 10 per cent of the value of cars imported into the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2024 , according to trade data. Throw in hybrids and plug-in hybrids, and more than a quarter of the market is switching to batteries. That is a troubling sign for the UAE and its oil-exporting neighbours in the Persian Gulf. If nations that owe their very existence to the transformative power of crude are switching to lithium-ion, then the prospects for their key export are looking distinctly shaky. The UAE is, to be sure, an outlier. But it is not completely alone. In Qatar, one in eight vehicles imported in 2024 was battery-powered or hybrid, with similar proportions in Iraq and Iran. The share was 10 per cent in Bahrain and 7 per cent in Kuwait. EVs are springing up everywhere across the region. About 35,000 were registered in the UAE as of October 2024, according to government data. Tesla has stores in four of the UAE's emirates as well as Qatar, and in April, it announced a division in Saudi Arabia. It is playing catch-up with China's BYD, already in all of those markets plus the other three Gulf monarchies. Saudi Arabia's relative paucity of imports belies its ambitions as a manufacturer. The kingdom's Public Investment Fund (PIF) has poured more than US$8 billion (S$10.3 billion) into its majority-owned Lucid Group, a US-headquartered EV-maker. Lucid has built an EV plant in King Abdullah Economic City on the shores of the Red Sea that aims to churn out 150,000 cars a year, though sales so far have not come close to such ambitious projections. Nearby, a joint venture between the PIF and Hon Hai Precision Industry, or Foxconn, is building another US$1.3 billion EV plant, while a third joint venture between PIF and Hyundai Motor broke ground in May 2025 with plans to manufacture both EVs and conventional cars. This budding love affair with EVs might not be quite as surprising as it first seems. Two of the biggest barriers towards switching to electric are range anxiety and upfront costs, but neither applies much in the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council. They are some of the most urbanised societies on the planet, so outside of Saudi Arabia, few people are driving great distances. High disposable incomes make it easy to pay for a battery car, especially as cheaper Chinese models flood the market. Lacking domestic vehicle industries to protect, they are less likely to raise tariffs like the US and Europe have done. Low-density suburbs give plenty of opportunities for owners to charge cheaply at home. The heavily subsidised petrol that the world's petrostates give to their citizens is not nearly the deterrent you might expect either. Most of the Gulf countries have made attempts to link their fuel prices to market rates over the past decade, discouraging the extreme wastefulness of domestic consumption and freeing up more crude for export. While petrol is still absurdly cheap by global standards, electricity now receives far more generous subsidies as governments attempt to stimulate industrial activities that can carry their economies through the looming downturn in oil demand. That translates into rock-bottom charging costs for owners. 'Electricity is so cheap here that you won't even notice the difference on your bill,' one Dubai-based owner of an Xpeng car wrote in a social media post in May . An owner of a BYD Qin estimated savings of 36,000 dirhams (S$12,600) over five years due to paying 'basically nothing' for electricity. It might be tempting to think of the burgeoning Gulf EV market as an idiosyncratic case. That would be a mistake. The popularity of battery propulsion in a region built on the thirst of internal combustion engines is a warning that a fundamentally better technology is now displacing petrol for good. With oil prices gyrating after the Israeli attack on Iran on June 12, who wants the cost of filling up his or her petrol tank to become collateral damage in the Middle East's wars? The world's refiners are already gearing up for an imminent future where chemicals consume more petroleum than petrol-powered vehicles. In decades to come, oil monarchies will not pay their bills by providing the fuel for your car, but feedstock for the plastics in its dashboard and seat foam. Road fuel still consumes more than half of the world's oil. Judging by the electrification of crude's heartlands, decline is now imminent. BLOOMBERG David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
