Li Ka-shing’s CK Asset makes first step in rescue of distressed Hong Kong developer Goldin as hostile creditors seize assets
- Troubled developer adds an executive from CK Asset to its board for financial and restructuring advice after creditors swoop in to seize its assets
- ‘We will actively study Goldin’s financial and debt status,’ CK Asset says in media statement
Goldin Financial Holdings, the troubled developer with HK$18.5 billion of liabilities, named Gerald Ma Lai-chee as vice-chairman and non executive director, according to an exchange filing late Wednesday. The 52-year-old executive, an executive committee member at CK Asset, “will focus on providing financial and restructuring advice” to the group, Goldin added.
“We will actively study Goldin’s financial and debt status,” CK Asset said in a separate email statement to the press, in response to queries about its role as a white knight to Goldin.
Ma’s appointment came a week after hostile creditors filed notices to wind up Goldin and seize control of the group’s assets pledged as security for debt related to two loans worth the equivalent of HK$3.5 billion in March 2019 and a HK$6.8 billion floating-rate bond in the following month.
The assets in peril include Goldin’s 27-storey headquarters in Kowloon Bay known as Goldin Financial Global Centre with a market value of at least HK$15 billion, according to its stock exchange filing on July 15. Others include equity stakes in its unlisted subsidiaries, it said.