Andy Yung has found a new home in Repulse Bay
A grandson of CITIC founder and former vice president of China Rong Yiren has purchased a home in Repulse Bay from a member of Malaysia’s Kuok family for HK$113 million, according to an account in the Hong Kong Economic Times.
Andy Yung Ming Tai (荣明棣), the second son of former CITIC Pacific chairman Larry Yung Chi Kin (known in Mandarin as Rong Zhijian) bought the duplex Unit E in Repulse Bay Towers, acquiring a new home next door to an apartment owned by his mother, Catherine Yam Shun Nei.
Yung’s high-level home covers a saleable area of 2,893 square feet, with the acquisition equivalent to around HK$ 39,060 per square foot. The adjoining 2,578 square foot unit F was purchased in 2013 for HK$70 million.
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The 37-year-old heir to China’s best known family of red capitalists purchased the property from Kerry Trading Co Ltd, a unit of Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok’s Kuok Group, which also controls Shangri-La Hotels and Kerry Properties.
Repulse Bay Towers
Andy Yung’s new home will also put him close to his father’s residence, a 9,700 square foot villa at 75 Repulse Bay Road. Larry Yung, who resigned as CITIC Pacific chairman in 2009 has occupied the three-storey seaview home since 1997, shortly after purchasing the 13,000 square foot site from Robert Kuok.
Originally from a family of Wuxi flour and fabric makers, Yung’s grandfather, Rong Yiren controlled one of Shanghai’s most prominent banks in the 1930s and 1940s, but became an early backer of Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese communist party, while continuing to run the family’s business empire.
Rong became vice-mayor of Shanghai in 1957 but was later sent down to Sichuan during the Cultural Revolution. In the late 1970s when Deng Xiaoping began opening up China’s economy, China’s then paramount leader recruited Rong to set up CITIC in 1979 and later made the “Red Capitalist” a vice president of the People’s Republic.
Andy Yung who formerly worked at Morgan Stanley and CITIC has chosen to make his new home in Repulse Bay Towers, a 56-year-old project that remains a popular retreat among Hong Kong’s elite. The unit is said to have formerly served as a residence for a member of the Kuok family, after Kerry Trading purchased the property for HK$15 million in 2001.
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Long a favoured residential spot for Hong Kong’s celebrities and tycoons, Repulse Bay is increasingly a safe harbour for cashed-up mainland billionaires.
China Evergrande Group CEO and vice president Xia Haijun recently spent HK$156 million to purchase a duplex unit in New World Development and Kam Wah Investment’s Pavilia Hill project on Tin Hau Temple Road.
The Evergrande executive, whose corporate headquarters is across the border in Shenzhen, is paying around HK$55,000 per square foot for his new luxury home.
Iris Poon provided research for this story.
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