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Exclusive | Hong Kong’s richest woman is still eyeing her biggest purchase – even though her paper wealth has halved

Kingston Financial Group co-founder Pollyanna Chu is still shopping for a stake in the world’s most expensive office building.

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Undated file photo of Pollyanna Chu Lee Yuet-wah.

One of Hong Kong’s wealthiest women is still shopping for the biggest purchase of her life – a stake in the world’s most expensive office building – even though her wealth on paper has halved.

Pollyanna Chu Lee Yuet-wah, co-founder of Kingston Financial Group, said she is close to completing the financing for her 17 per cent stake in the HK$40.2 billion (US$5.15 billion) purchase of The Center, a 73-storey office tower in Central, from Li Ka-shing’s CK Asset Holdings. 

“This will be the biggest acquisition I have ever made,” Chu said by telephone when contacted by the South China Morning Post.

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Chu has had half of her estimated US$12 billion fortune wiped out – on paper at least – since November by a collapse in Kingston’s stock price. Shares of her flagship company fell from a record high of HK$9.62 on November 30 to HK$4.01 on Monday.
Pollyanna Chu and her husband Nicholas Chu at a Franck Muller event at Wynn Macau. Undated. Photo: Handout
Pollyanna Chu and her husband Nicholas Chu at a Franck Muller event at Wynn Macau. Undated. Photo: Handout
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Chu, who turns 60 in August, wasn’t perturbed. “I have a bigger private investment portfolio,” she said. “I was not excited when I was crowned as the richest woman” in Hong Kong by Forbes, she said. “For now, I do not feel bad.” 

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