One of these two lucky puppies just got a wealthy new master
As China’s property sales have slowed down and bad news has seeped into the country’s real estate market, many developers have been scrambling to invest in everything from US real estate to bottled water.
Now comes news of the latest mainland scheme for diversifying those property proceeds – buying $2 million puppies to start dog breeding operations.
According to a report in the Qianjiang Evening News this week, a real estate developer in eastern China’s Zhejiang province paid RMB 12 million (US$1.95 million) for a one-year-old golden-haired mastiff at a “luxury pet” fair on Tuesday.
The buyer reportedly was a 56-year-old property tycoon from Qingdao who plans to use his new stud to start his own dog breeding business.
In recent months other Chinese real estate entrepreneurs such as Vanke’s Wang Shi have diversified their holdings by buying into overseas property, such as Vanke’s Manhattan project announced last month. Slightly more adventurous was the January announcement by Hui Ka Yan, chairman of Vanke competitor Evergrande Real Estate, of plans to sell RMB 10 billion of bottled water this year.
However, the real money could be in going to the dogs.
In 2011, a red mastiff named “Big Splash” reportedly sold for RMB 10 million, and the report in the Qianjiang Evening News cited a sale last year of another mastiff for RMB 27 million at a fair in Beijing.
Looked at in light of these statistics, if the owner of recently failed Zhejiang Xingrun had invested in just a mastiff or two along the way, he might have been able to pay off his RMB 3.5 billion in debts with just 129 hounds. Give or take a few.
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