Kaisa boss Kwok Ying-shing has been shedding his empire even faster than he acquired it (Source: Getty Images)
The daughter of Kaisa Group chairman Kwok Ying-shing has agreed to sell half of her 28.4 percent shareholding in Hong Kong-listed publisher Sing Tao News, as the developer continues to pare back its holdings after defaulting on offshore debt late last year.
Kwok Hiu-ting will sell 125 million of her 250 million Sing Tao shares to Karson Choi and retain a 14.2 percent stake in the company, according to a Monday filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Choi, the son of toy-making tycoon Francis Choi, previously held no stake in Sing Tao and has been serving as an independent non-executive director. On Monday he was appointed co-chairman alongside Kaisa patriarch Kwok Ying-shing, while Kwok Hiu-ting remains vice chairman and co-CEO of the company, which publishes Hong Kong’s oldest Chinese-language newspaper.
At a last trading price of HK$0.44 per share on Friday, the value of Sing Tao’s stock has more than halved since the then 26-year-old Kwok Hiu-ting bought her controlling stake in February 2021 for HK$369.8 million ($47.7 million) from the company’s then chairman, Charles Ho.
Making Do With Less
Upon completion of the share sale, Kwok Hiu-ting and Karson Choi will each hold a 14.2 percent stake, with public shareholders owning the remaining 71.6 percent of Sing Tao, which also on Monday announced the appointment of accountant Andrew Fan as an independent non-executive director.
Kaisa headquarters in Shenzhen (Source: Getty Images)
Last December, the Kwok family’s Kaisa Group acknowledged a failure to make payments on three sets of offshore senior notes and confirmed that it had engaged restructuring advisors to work with creditors on a plan for $11.8 billion in outstanding dollar bonds. The Shenzhen-based developer said at the time that it had missed principal and interest payments on a $400 million note that matured on 7 December with no grace period.
The developer’s property management arm, Kaisa Prosperity Holdings, in December announced the resignation of Kwok Hiu-ting as executive director and vice chairwoman. That move followed the announcement by Kaisa Health Group Holdings that Kwok Hiu-ting’s two sisters, Kwok Ho Lai and Kwok Hiu Yan, had resigned from the board of the healthcare subsidiary of Kaisa Group, with both having been appointed to their executive director positions in mid-2021.
Reuters reported in October that Kaisa Group was shopping its 67.18 percent stake in Kaisa Prosperity in a bid to raise cash to meet its swelling debt commitments.
Assets Up for Grabs
Kaisa announced last November that it was selling its half stake in a once-prized residential site on Hong Kong’s former Kai Tak airport runway in a deal valuing the property at HK$7.9 billion.
The agreement to sell the Kai Tak plot to a joint venture of New World Development and Far East Consortium was announced shortly after media reports indicated that Kaisa was selling a residential site in the New Territories for HK$3.78 billion.
In April of this year, Kaisa entered a strategic cooperation agreement with state-owned China Merchants Shekou Industrial Zone Holdings and China Great Wall Asset Management on joint venture arrangements and asset acquisitions. Later that month, accounting firm Grant Thornton resigned as Kaisa’s auditor after the developer missed a 31 March deadline for reporting its 2021 financial results.
In mid-May, receivers put up for sale a high-end home formerly owned by Kaisa vice chairman and CEO Mai Fan in Hong Kong’s Pok Fu Lam neighbourhood.
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