Tycoon Henry Cheng becomes biggest Chinese investor in post-Brexit UK with £1 billion London project
Cheng’s private company, Knight Dragon, will develop project comprising hotels, homes, offices and cinemas as part of Greenwich Peninsula regeneration
Henry Cheng Kar-shun, chairman of Hong Kong’s New World Development, has committed to invest £1 billion to develop a mixed property project in London, becoming the biggest single Chinese investor in Britain after the country’s vote to leave the European Union.
The project will comprise 800 apartment units, office space and 500 hotel rooms totalling 1.4 million square feet, sitting atop a complex that will house a bus station, cinemas, bars and shops, according to information provided by Cheng’s company Knight Dragon.
“It shows our long-term confidence,” Sammy Lee, vice-chairman of Knight Dragon, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
Knight Dragon is a private company chaired and owned by Cheng, who was rumoured to have suffered a minor stroke on the eve of the Lunar New Year last week.
Cheng, 70, had not been feeling well recently and was on leave to rest, New World said in a statement on Wednesday, without elaborating.
The company’s shares were little changed on Wednesday when trading resumed after the Lunar New Year holiday pause, after the company issued its statement regarding Cheng’s health. The stock closed 1.3 per cent lower on Thursday at HK$8.93 in its biggest one-day fall in eight trading days.
