Wharf shares jump to record as HK$230 bn property spin-off plan revealed
Wharf Holdings, one of Hong Kong’s biggest landowners, saw its shares surge 15 per cent on Wednesday after it unveiled plans to spin off its core commercial assets in the city into a separate listing.
Wharf said it was carving out six investment properties in Hong Kong with a market value of over HK$230 billion (US$29.4 billion) into a new entity named Wharf Real Estate Investment Company. They are Harbour City and Times Square – Hong Kong’s two biggest malls in shopping districts – and Plaza Hollywood, Crawford House, Wheelock House and The Murray.
The spin-off proposal has been approved by the Hong Kong stock exchange, but Wharf REIC is still “in the process of preparing its application” for the listing, the company said.
“The reason we want to do a spin-off is to separate the businesses, make it clearer,” Wharf chairman Stephen Ng Tin-hoi said in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
The reason we want to do a spin-off is to separate the businesses, make it clearer
Ng said the company had “no intention to raise funds” through the planned spin-off. But this would mean that existing Wharf shareholders will be allocated 1,000 shares of the new listed entity for every board lot of 1,000 shares that he or she owns.
After the demerger, Wharf said it would focus on investment properties and development properties in mainland China, as well as other Hong Kong real estate , logistics, and hotel management.