Beijing Pengtai, which already holds 2 per cent of Beijing Centergate, will become the largest shareholder after buying 185 million state-owned shares from Beijing Zhuzong Group, the biggest state-owned developer in Beijing.

Beijing Pengtai would inject high-quality property projects into the company to help make it profitable this year, Beijing Centergate said. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals.

'Mr Wong is such a star right now that it is easy for him to raise money in the mainland's capital market,' said Ivan Chung, managing director of credit ratings at Xinhua Finance.

Mr Wong has set up a number of property companies, including Pengrun Property and Gome Property. In March, he spent 230 million yuan to buy 48 per cent of Beijing Zhongguancun Development & Construction.

Gome Electrical, the largest electronics retailer in China, this week offered to buy out No3 rival China Paradise Electronics Retail for $5.27 billion.

Beijing Centergate, set up in 1999 by seven conglomerates including Lenovo Group, runs businesses covering property, information technology, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. It derived 66 per cent of last year's revenue from biotechnology and pharmaceutical businesses while 24 per cent came from property development.

The firm said in April that it would report a loss of between 40 million yuan and 60 million yuan for the first quarter. However, it expects to make a profit from new property projects. It reported a loss of 531 million yuan last year.

'The company is relatively cheap now for Mr Wong to buy,' Mr Chung said.

Based on published figures, Beijing Pengtai will pay an average of 77 fen for each Beijing Centergate share, which closed up 10 per cent to 5.20 yuan yesterday. The stock has gained 116 per cent this year.

However, Mr Wong still needs to compensate individual shareholders in Beijing Centergate's share reform to convert state-owned shares into tradable ones over the next 60 days.