Hong Kong’s Gale Well Loses $44M in Four Years on Sale of Floor in The Center

Four years of owning a floor in The Center, an office tower on Hong Kong’s Queen’s Road, has cost local investment firm Gale Well Group HK$343 million ($43.7 million), as commercial property values in the Asian financial hub remain in freefall.

Gale Well, which is liquidating multiple properties in an effort to pay off creditors, had purchased the 26th floor in the Central district skyscraper for HK$693 million in July 2021 in what the company’s owner, tycoon Jacinto Tong Man-Leung, had declared as a bargain at the time.

With declines in commercial property values leaving many Hong Kong investors needing to top up their equity to maintain loan to value ratios with banks, Tong sold the 4,980 square foot (2,321 square metre) asset recently for HK$350 million, according to local media accounts.

Gale Well also was reported last week to have sold a floor in the Shun Tak Centre tower in Sheung Wan, just a few blocks from The Center, at a price about half off of the market peak. During this month property agents have been marketing whole buildings from Gale Well’s portfolio as the investor urgently seeks liquidity.

“Outsmarting’ Li Ka-Shing

Gale Well’s recent sale in the Center sees the firm disposing of one of three floors it purchased in the grade A office tower with the asset changing hands at approximately HK$14,000 per square foot. That price is 49.5 percent less than what the company paid to acquire the asset from  Hong Kong’s late “Minibus King”, Ma Ah-muk, four years ago. 

The sale price is nearly 75 percent less than the record rate for a floor in the building, when a mainland investor purchased the 79th floor in the Center for HK$55,854 per square foot in 2017.

Ma Ah-muk had been among a consortium of investors who teamed up to purchase The Center from Li Ka-shing’s CK Asset for HK$40.2 billion in 2017, with Gale Well’s Tong buying in later, after judging that the investor nicknamed Superman had sold on the cheap.

After acquiring the third of his three floors in The Center, Tong said in an interview in November 2021 that rents were on the rise and said that “Li Ka-shing should regret” selling the property for the equivalent of HK$33,000 per square foot.

The drop in asset values comes as grade A office rents in Hong Kong fell about 3.4 percent in the first six months of 2025 from the end of last year, with leasing rates now 42.8 percent below their 2019 peak, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Downsizing Continues

In the Shun Tak Centre, which is known for housing the Macau ferry terminal, Gale Well sold the 35th floor in the complex’ western tower for HK$440 million according to the Hong Kong Economic Times, after having paid HK$110 million to acquire the property in 2004.

At around HK$20,000 per square foot, the deal represents a one-third markdown from Gale Well’s asking price when it appointed Savills to market the asset in September.

The Shun Tak Centre sale also indicates an approximately 45 percent drop from top asset values in the strata title commercial tower, which reached their peak in 2017, according to Hong Kong-based CHFT Advisory and Appraisal.

“Nevertheless, we opine that it is still a decent price at today’s market,” said Bobby Mak, real estate valuer at CHFT Advisory and Appraisal.

Tong had said in March that he was seeking to bolster Gale Well’s balance sheet by offloading assets, with the company selling a luxury apartment building at 68-70 Chung Hom Kok Road for HK$220 million that same month. 

This past week property agencies were promoting a Gale Well-owned boutique hotel at 39 Morrison Hill Road in Causeway Bay, with local media reports citing a market value of HK$500 million. In a prior marketing push last November Gale Well was seeking HK$630 million for the asset.