New | Cheung Kong puts The Center up for sale as Li Ka-shing trims Hong Kong assets
The 73-storey office building in Central is being offered for sale at a price of HK$35 billion; deep-pocketed mainland Chinese companies bidding
Hong Kong’s wealthiest man, Li Ka-shing, is putting his tallest building in the city up for sale, garnering bids from several Chinese buyers that point to the increasing trend of mainland companies with deep pockets snapping up local assets.
Li’s Cheung Kong Property Holdings Co has put The Center on the market with little fanfare for six months, according to a property agent involved in the deal, who declined to be named. A handful of keen buyers are bidding on the 73-storey tower, valued at HK$35 billion, the agent said.
At that price, The Center will be Hong Kong’s most expensive real estate transaction.
Analysts point to China’s state-owned companies with deep pockets as the most likely buyers for the tower in downtown Central, which has 1.2 million square feet of office space, 13,000 square feet of retail space and 402 car parking lots.
“Only state-owned enterprises can afford such a sum,” said Knight Frank’s head of valuation and consultancy Thomas Lam.
The building, completed in 1998, is an entire steel structure without a concrete core. Its iconic lobby was featured in the Hollywood movie The Dark Knight.
Cheung Kong owns 48 storeys in the building after Malaysian developer Guoco Group bought 11 floors in 1997. Nine of the 11 floors were sold to Singapore’s DBS Group Holdings Co. in 1998, while Cheung Kong sold the 60th and 79th floors in 1999, according to The Center’s sales brochure.