HNA will go it alone to build at the former Kai Tak airport, denies joint project with Sun Hung Kai

HNA Group, the Chinese conglomerate that muscled its way into Hong Kong’s real estate market in 2016 and 2017, said it will go it alone in building on the former Kai Tak airport site, for which it paid a record HK$27.2 billion (US$3.48 billion).

“We have discussed with various parties but have not come up with any plan to jointly develop the project,” said Liu Junchun, vice-chairman of HNA’s listed unit Hong Kong International Construction Investment Management Group. The company, a Hong Kong-listed unit of the mainland conglomerate HNA, owns two of the four sites bought in 2016 and 2017.

The other two sites are owned by Hong Kong International Investment Group, formerly known as HNA Holding International Investment Group, a private unit of HNA .

HNA, with 290,000 employees around the world, has 6,000 people in Hong Kong on its payroll. The company would build housing at Kai Tak for its staff, selling them at subsidised prices to help them afford to own property in the world’s priciest market, founder Chen Feng said in an interview with the South China Morning Post in June last year.