HKEX Raps Fantasia Boss, Former Colour Life Execs for Property Management Tricks

Several current and former executives of defaulting developer Fantasia Holdings and its property management spin-off Colour Life Services drew a rare rebuke and disciplinary action from the Hong Kong stock exchange this week for breaking a non-compete deal.

In a statement issued Monday, the HKEX ordered Fantasia chairman and chief executive Pan Jun to attend 17 hours of training on regulatory and legal topics, including exchange listing rule compliance, within 90 days.

Pan, who also serves as chairman and CEO of Colour Life, along with former Colour Life CEO Tang Xue Bin, must attend the training as a prerequisite of any future appointment as a director of an HKEX-listed company. Fantasia has remained the controlling shareholder of Colour Life since the 2015 spin-off.

The sanctions stem from a deal obligating Fantasia to provide property management strictly for “pure commercial properties”, while Colour Life was to handle such services for “pure residential communities” only. The HKEX said it uncovered various instances of crossover since 2015, including 30 residential projects in which Fantasia took part in the management and three acquisitions by Colour Life of firms engaged in commercial property management.

Pan Sticking Around

Fantasia and Colour Life issued a joint statement Monday acknowledging the breached agreement and noted that Pan, Tang and former directors Lam Kam Tong and Zhou Qin Wei would be required to attend the 17 hours of training. However, the company pointed to the absence of charges of criminal malfeasance against its leadership as allowing the executives to continue to safeguard shareholder interests.

“Having considered that there is no evidence involving any act of dishonesty, fraud or cast doubt on Mr. Pan Jun’s integrity, the company considers Mr. Pan Jun remains suitable to serve as a director of each of Fantasia and Colour Life,” the Shenzhen-based companies said.

Founded by Baby Zeng Jie, the niece of former vice president of China Zeng Qinghong, Fantasia holds a 51.69 percent stake in Colour Life, which provides property management at residential projects in mainland cities.

Colour Life’s other shareholders have included e-commerce giant JD.com and internet security provider Qihoo 360 Technology, which purchased respective stakes of 5 percent and 3.05 percent in the HKEX-listed firm in 2019.

Wrong Kind of Headlines

After missing loan payments in 2021, Fantasia is in the midst of a debt restructuring guided by US firm Houlihan Lokey.

The group’s credibility took a hit last October when Fitch Ratings downgraded the developer over the late payments and shoddy book-keeping.

In December, Fantasia announced the resignation of its chief financial officer, Zhang Huiming, who had served in the post and as an executive director of the company since 2019. Zhang’s departure came just days before Moody’s Investors Service said it was withdrawing its rating of Fantasia due to a lack of information.

To help ease its cash crunch, Fantasia in late January agreed to sell a 41 percent stake in a company that holds a Chongqing project for RMB 200 million ($31.4 million) to a unit of state-controlled developer Guangzhou Yuexiu Group.