Super rich investors who bought The Center finding it tough to sell floors amid property downturn
- Only five floors are confirmed to have been sold
- An investor group paid a world record US$5.15 billion for the building six months ago
Talk about bad timing. Super wealthy investors who paid US$5.15 billion for The Center – in the world’s most expensive real estate transaction ever – have mostly been spinning their wheels over the last six months trying to sell it off floor by floor.
Plans for quick riches were hampered by the US-China trade war, the global stock market slump, and the growing doom and gloom hanging over property generally now in Hong Kong.
In contrast, Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest person, who sold The Center, looks every bit the “Superman” nickname he acquired thanks to his business acumen.
“If I sold, I would have gotten a bad price. I won’t sell now,” said Lo Man-tuen, founder of DVD and compact disc maker Wing Li Group. Lo confirmed that four out of the five floors he owns have not yet sold.
Only five of the 48 floors bought by the 10 investors appear to have been resold, and some of those fetched lower-than-expected prices, though the owners still made a profit. However, at least three of the investors said in November that they didn’t intend to sell immediately.
“There was a moment when as long as you grabbed one piece of cake in the building, it meant winning money. But now the sky has darkened. It was just a bit unlucky that they have come across a sudden dive in the market,” Chelsea Lin, senior associate director at Colliers International, said of the investors.