Chengdu Tycoon Revealed as Buyer of HK$1.1B Pair of Houses at Hong Kong’s Mount Nicholson

While the citizenry of Hong Kong has shown mixed feelings toward the adoption of China’s judicial system in recent weeks, the city’s property developers have had better results from selling luxury properties to mainland tycoons, with one real estate magnate having now purchased three of the city’s most expensive new homes.

The chairman of Chengdu-based property developer Junhao Group, Shi Jinyu, has now purchased his second and third houses at Mount Nicholson, a high end residential project in Hong Kong’s Jardine’s Lookout area, for HK$1.1 billion ($140 million), according to land Registry documents and sales records posted by the project’s managers.

The pair of transactions happened at the same time through a tender launched in late June, with Shi’s purchase of both properties only having been revealed this week through land registry records.

Buying Twin Properties on the Peak

Already the master of a company engaged in residential and hotel development, logistic warehouses and pharmaceuticals, Shi adds the pair of properties to his personal portfolio, with each said to include its own garden, garage, roof terrace and courtyard.

The Chengdu builder purchased House 21, a 6326 square foot villa in phase 2 of the project for more than HK$530 million, or HK$85,188 per square foot, while paying more than HK$580 million, or HK$82,889 per square foot for its identically sized twin, House 22.

Both homes changed hands for around 21.5 percent less than the HK$105,603 per square foot that a 22-year-old mainland heir paid to purchase House 15 in the development for HK$916 million ($117.33 million) in early June.

Shi bought the pair of properties around two weeks after an estimated one million protesters had taken to the streets against the Hong Kong government’s anti-extradition bill, with chief executive Carrie Lam forced to suspend the bill on 15 June.

A Taste for High Level Property

Together with House 10 at Mount Nicholson, which Shi purchased in 2016 for HK$664 million ($84.91 million), the fifty-four year old Liaoning-native has now spent a total of HK$1.8 billion at the high-end project jointly developed by local builders Wheelock & Company and Nan Fung Group.

Shi was also listed as a director of privately held Excel Fine Holdings Ltd, a shell company used to purchase the 79th and upper-most floor of The Center in Central for HK$55,854 per square foot in September 2017, breaking the price record for office space in the city at that time.