Chinese Estates, run by family of fugitive tycoon Joseph Lau, swings from interim profit to loss as its Evergrande shares plummet

The Hong Kong developer posted an interim loss of HK$ 37.3 million (US$4.79 million) for the six months ended June

Billionaire Lau was convicted of bribery and money-laundering by a Macau court in 2014, but avoided a five-year jail term by not travelling there

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Former Chinese Estates Holdings chairman and chief executive Joseph Lau Luen-hung resigned after he was found guilty of bribery and money laundering charges in Macau. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 7:45pm, 16 Aug 2021Updated: 7:45pm, 16 Aug 2021

Chinese Estates Holdings, a Hong Kong developer controlled by the family of fugitive property tycoon Joseph Lau Luen-hung, has swung from profit to loss after getting burned by stock market investments including China Evergrande’s plummeting shares.

The company posted an interim loss of HK$35.5 million (US$4.56 million) for the six months ended in June, reversing HK$786 million of profit in the same period last year. It suffered an investment loss of HK$418.3 million, including changes in fair value on bond holdings.

Revenue dropped 63 per cent to HK$726.2 million in the first half of the year, from HK$1.96 billion in the same period of 2020, the company said in its interim results announcement on Thursday.

Chinese Estates, chaired by Joseph Lau’s son, Lau Ming-wai, 40, said that the decline in revenue was mainly a result of the decrease in dividend income from the Evergrande shares.

The unrealised loss on fair value change of the shares in China’s biggest developer came to HK$4.11 billion.

The company said there would be a further loss on fair value of HK$3.78 billion because the Chinese home builder’s share price has continued to slide since the end of June.