Interview: Tom Cheung Ling-fung, chief executive of Hui Xian Reit
After years on the mainland, Hui Xian Real Estate Investment Trust's new chief is looking to contain rising expenses at its Beijing properties
Tom Cheung Ling-fung, chief executive of Hui Xian Real Estate Investment Trust, was among the first Hong Kong executives to relocate to the mainland in the early 1990s, and he's seen first-hand some of the dramatic changes the economy has undergone in the past two decades.
For instance, he recalls that when he first arrived, it took nine months to get a fixed telephone line installed. Today, the mainland is truly wired with 513 million internet users, the highest number of any country.
The rapid development of the mainland's economy and its infrastructure offered Cheung numerous career opportunities. He worked for a Hong Kong-based property consultancy when he first moved to Guangzhou. Then in 1994, he was asked to open an office in Shanghai for international property consultant CBRE. And in 2000, Cheung moved to Beijing to manage the serviced apartments that are part of the Beijing Oriental Plaza complex - now the prime asset of Hui Xian.
He became chief executive of Hui Xian on July 1 this year.
Cheung Kong (Holdings) transferred Oriental Plaza to Hui Xian and then listed it as the first yuan-denominated reit on the Hong Kong stock exchange in April 2011. It has more than 2,000 staff.
Oriental Plaza is a retail-serviced-apartment-office development with a total gross area of 800,000 square metres. It includes Grand Hyatt Beijing, a five-star hotel with 825 rooms. Hui Xian also indirectly controls Shenyang Lido Hotel in the capital city of Liaoning province in the north.