The Chinese hotel mogul behind three Nasdaq listings thinks now is the time to head abroad for deals while rivals stay at home

Ji Qi, the hotel mogul who took three Chinese start-ups including the country’s largest online travel agency Ctrip.com to list on the Nasdaq, said now is the time to expand abroad while the competition is being cowed to stay homebound by the trade war and China’s crackdown on freewheeling.

Outbound acquisitions have stalled among Chinese companies since April 2017, when regulators put half a dozen highly leveraged asset buyers – including the Anbang Group, CEFC, Dalian Wanda and the HNA Group – under heightened scrutiny. The deteriorating trade war between the US and China has also led to increasing scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which has deterred Chinese asset buyers.

“I need to think big,” said Ji, chairman of the Huazhu Group, in an interview with South China Morning Post in Shanghai. “When others feel it is the worst time to expand amid the trade war, it may have created opportunities for us to pursue lucrative deals.”

The 53-year-old billionaire, whose 2018 net worth was estimated by Forbes at 21.2 billion yuan (US$3.07 billion), was China’s 87th-wealthiest person. He was a co-founder of three Chinese travel companies – Ctrip, Home Inns and the more recent Huazhu – all of which successfully raised capital through initial public offerings on Nasdaq.

Huazhu, China’s largest privately owned hotel chain, manages nearly 440,000 rooms in 4,400 properties across more than 400 cities on the mainland. Formerly known as China Lodging Group when it was established in Shanghai in 2007, Huazhu has evolved from a budget hotel chain into one of the top 10 global hotel chains, with a market capitalisation of US$9.2 billion. That’s more than double the value of Shangri-La Asia, owned by the family of tycoon Robert Kuok Hock Nien.