Cheung Kei Tycoon’s Seized Mid-Levels Apartment Said to Sell for $53.5M

A Hong Kong luxury apartment seized from Shenzhen tycoon Chen Hongtian in March has sold for HK$420 million ($53.5 million), according to local media accounts, with the price paid for the Mid-Levels home reportedly representing a 38 percent discount to the property’s market value.

Receivers sold the fifth-floor unit at Opus Hong Kong on Stubbs Road to an undisclosed buyer for HK$81,490 per square foot in the tender exercise conducted by Savills, HK01 reported. The news site said the market valuation was roughly HK$680 million for the property, which the Cheung Kei Group chairman and his wife purchased in 2015 for HK$387 million.

HK01 understands that Chen took out a mortgage of HK$500 million against the luxury unit, indicating that the lender, Bank of Communications, sustained a loss of at least HK$80 million on the disposal.

Despite the mark-down, the property was sold for around 10 percent more than the HK$387 million that Chen reportedly paid to acquire the condo in the Frank Gehry-designed building from developer Swire Properties in 2015.

Peak Mansion Next

The seizure of the five-bedroom home perched among lush greenery near The Peak was one of a series of recent moves by creditors to take over assets linked to Chen and his private mainland investment firm.

Last month, Savills launched a tender for the tycoon’s former mansion on The Peak after the home was seized in March. Chen had made a splash when he purchased the 15 Gough Hill Road abode in 2016 for HK$2.1 billion ($269 million).

He explained at the time that his existing Opus Hong Kong apartment was “a little bit too tiny” at 5,154 square feet, according to an account in the South China Morning Post.

After Chen paid the equivalent of HK$228,000 per square foot to purchase the mansion, with some analysts pegging this as the highest rate per unit area in the world, local media reports have estimated that the house could sell for HK$1.5 billion to HK$2.5 billion.

Trophy Case Stripped

Just one month after the start of the tender for Chen’s former apartment in Mid-Levels, receivers appointed by Cheung Kei Group creditors took over 20 Canada Square, an office tower on London’s Canary Wharf that Cheung Kei had acquired in mid-2017 for £410 million ($530 million).

In late May, receivers seized Cheung Kei’s 5 Churchill Place after the company had defaulted on loans backed by the Canary Wharf office tower. Cheung Kei had acquired the property in December 2017 for £270 million.

Also in May, receivers began marketing One HarbourGate East Tower, an office building that had been known as the Cheung Kei Center and served as the group’s Hong Kong headquarters until it was seized in March. Cheung Kei had acquired the 17-floor property for HK$4.5 billion (then $580 million) in 2016.