China’s super-rich embark on British spending spree as pound nosedives
- Chinese companies have made 15 big acquisitions in Britain so far this year, spending US$8.3 billion on everything from schools to skyscrapers
- Recent deals include US$3.3 billion purchase of pub chain Greene King by Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest man
China’s president, Xi Jinping, and David Cameron famously sealed their countries’ “golden era” friendship in 2015 over a pint of Greene King IPA at the Plough at Cadsden, a five-minute drive from the then prime minister’s Chequers country residence.
They were clearly a nice couple of pints. A year later the Chinese investment firm SinoFortone bought the 16th-century pub for £2 million (US$2.54 million), and announced plans (which have not yet materialised) to build 100 replica pubs across China.
And, this week, the family of Hong Kong’s richest person, Li Ka-shing, bought out all of Greene King including 2,700 pubs, restaurants and hotels for £2.7 billion (US$3.3 billion).
Pubs are just a tiny part of a wave of cash flooding to Britain from China and Hong Kong, as the Chinese state and the region’s super-rich take advantage of the collapse in the value of pound to buy up everything from luxury homes, skyscrapers such as London’s Walkie Talkie and Cheesegrater, a third of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, private schools and Pizza Express.
The Chinese super-rich also either own or have big stakes in Southampton, Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion and Reading football clubs. The famous Wentworth golf course is owned by the Thai-Chinese billionaire Chanchai Ruayrungruang, one of Asia’s richest men with an estimated US$11 billion fortune. Wang Jianlin, China’s wealthiest man, owns the luxury yacht maker Sunseeker.