Hong Kong’s ‘electronics king’ turns old Shenzhen factory into valuable property project

Koo Ming-kown, known as the “electronics king” in Hong Kong, earned his first fortune selling calculators before moving into high end electronic products.

Now, the 72-year old manufacturing tycoon, who is good at calculating profits, is turning his attention to property.

His company, New York-listed Nam Tai Property which he founded in 1975 and still heads as chairman, announced in June plans to develop two former manufacturing sites near the Qianhai special economic zone next to Shenzhen into residential, commercial and office complexes called Inno City and Inno Park.

“It’s not that our company is changing from manufacturing to property. It is also related to the government policy where Shenzhen intends to redevelop itself from a manufacturing centre into an innovation and creative centre with residential, commercial and retail areas,” Koo told the South China Morning Post in an interview at his home in Shiu Fai Terrace in Wanchai.

Of the two developments, the first would be the Inno Park project which will begin construction from June next year with Hong Kong architectural firm Ronald Lu and Partners designing the complex. The 130,000 square-metre plot of land in Guangming New District, Shenzhen was purchased in 2007 for 100 million yuan (HK$116.84 million). Nam Tai initially wanted to establish it as a residential area for its own factory workers, but the land was not handed over to the company until 2014 as some farmers refused to move out after Nam Tai bought the farmland-turned industrial land in 2007.

A plot of land nearby, measuring 152,400 square metres, was sold for 14 billion yuan in the first half of this year. Koo said this indicated the land for Inno Park could be worth over 10 billion yuan, 100 times more than its original acquisition price.