Mingtiandi

Asia real estate and outbound investment news

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
Sign Up / Login Logout

Lost your password?
Register
Forgotten Password
Cancel

Register For This Site

A password will be e-mailed to you.

  • Capital Markets
  • Events
    • Mingtiandi 2023 Event Calendar
    • Mingtiandi APAC Residential Forum 2023
    • Mingtiandi Asia Logistics Forum 2023
    • Mingtiandi Hong Kong Focus Forum 2023
    • Mingtiandi APAC Data Centre Forum 2023
    • Mingtiandi Asia Office Strategies Forum 2023
    • Mingtiandi Singapore Focus Forum 2023
    • More Events
  • MTD TV
  • People
  • Logistics
  • Data Centres
  • Asia Outbound
  • Retail
  • Research & Policy
  • Advertise

Hong Kong ‘Shop King’ Tang Shing-bor Dies at 88

2021/05/17 by Christopher Caillavet Leave a Comment

Tang Shing-Bor

Tang Shing-bor has finally left the market

Tang Shing-bor, a property tycoon whose sprawling portfolio of retail assets brought him fame as the “Shop King” of Hong Kong, has died at age 88.

According to a statement released by his family, Tang died peacefully in Hong Kong last Friday with relatives by his side.

“The family will continue to follow the legacy of Mr Tang Shing-bor and work together to develop the family business and make positive contributions to the country and society,” a representative said in the statement.

The Tang family’s real estate portfolio was valued at about HK$75 billion ($9.7 billion) last year, Bloomberg reported. Tang Shing-bor amassed the fortune by snapping up decrepit industrial properties and transforming them into commercial assets in gentrifying areas of Hong Kong. But a detour into hotels, followed by the retail downturn amid civil unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic, had put the mogul on the back foot in his final months.

Empire Builders

Born to a family of modest means, Tang worked as a neon sign maker and billboard technician during the 1960s. In 1970 he opened a dim sum restaurant that kick-started the retail empire he would assemble over the ensuing decades.

Stan Tang with his father the late Tang Shing-Bor

Tang Shing-bor with son Stan

By 1997 he had collected more than 200 shops worth HK$7.3 billion, but the Asian financial crisis that year torpedoed a planned IPO.

In later life Tang began to lay succession plans, grooming his youngest son, Stan Tang, to take over the family business. The son has proved an empire builder in his own right by establishing Stan Group, which owns residential, commercial and industrial assets throughout Hong Kong, mostly in Kowloon and the New Territories.

Stan Group ventured into hotels, restaurants and flexible offices, setting up co-working space The Wave in Kwun Tong in 2016 (later sold to Bank of China Hong Kong Asset Management) and buying the Hotel Bonaparte in Wan Chai for HK$450 million in 2017. The group’s hospitality subsidiary, Tang’s Living, owns hotels across the city.

Heartbreak Hotels

The Tang family pushed further into hospitality with the purchase of a 14-storey hotel at 80 Kimberly Road in Tsim Sha Tsui for HK$330 million and the 30-storey Inn Hotel Hong Kong in  Yau Ma Tei for HK$1.1 billion, both in 2018. But the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020 threw the sector’s outlook into doubt, and a plan to buy the H1 Hotel in Mong Kok for HK$328 million was scrapped.

Without guests to pay for hotel rooms in his son’s hostelries, the elder Tang last year began putting up for sale an estimated HK$6.5 billion in properties, including assets acquired less than a year earlier.

The Shop King then hit a patch of legal trouble last August after reportedly failing to pay more than HK$12 million in rent to the owners of a building at 182 Nathan Road. The landlords filed a lawsuit against Win Time Sing Technology Shenzhen, a mainland company owned by Tang, after the firm allegedly stopped paying rent in October 2019.

In January of this year, Tang and family were hit with another lawsuit seeking an outstanding debt of HK$265 million owed to an elderly care operator in which they held a stake.

Just last week, JLL announced that it had been engaged to market a set of senior living properties in Kowloon owned by Tang, with the serviced residences valued at HK$2.5 billion.

Despite the recent travails, Tang Shing-bor remained one of Asia’s wealthiest men, ranking 19th in the Forbes list of Hong Kong’s richest people in 2021 and 608th globally.

Share this now

  • LinkedIn
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Email

Filed Under: Real Estate Professionals Tagged With: Featured, Hong Kong, Stan Group, Tang Shing-bor, weekly-sp

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get Mingtiandi Delivered

MTD TV

SDAX Ties Up With ESR $1.5B Asia Data Centre Fund: MTD TV
Adrian Lee of AEW
AEW, KKR, Savills See Singapore Rising on HQ Demand, Return to Office

More MTD TV Videos>>

People in the News

Johnny Shao CPE
Asia Real Estate People in the News 2023-03-27
Jonathan Yap CapitaLand
Jonathan Yap Named CapitaLand Development CEO as Leow Retires Early
Grace Woo Chia-ching, executive director of CK Asset (Getty Images)
Asia Real Estate People in the News 2023-03-20
Eugene Kohn KPF
Asia Real Estate People in the News 2023-03-13

More Industry Professionals>>

People in the News

Asia Real Estate People in the News 2023-03-27

Johnny Shao CPE

Top level moves at European and Asian fund managers lead this week’s list of personnel changes from around Asia Pacific … Read More>>

Jonathan Yap Named CapitaLand Development CEO as Leow Retires Early

Jonathan Yap CapitaLand

Singapore property giant CapitaLand on Thursday announced the upcoming retirement of CapitaLand Development CEO Jason … Read More>>

Asia Real Estate People in the News 2023-03-20

Grace Woo Chia-ching, executive director of CK Asset (Getty Images)

Senior changes at developers in Hong Kong and mainland China lead this week’s review of personnel changes in Asia, with … Read More>>

Asia Real Estate People in the News 2023-03-13

Eugene Kohn KPF

The passing of a global architecture giant leads this week’s round of personnel updates on Mingtiandi, as KPF mourns the … Read More>>

More Industry Professionals>>

Latest Stories

5 Churchill Place
China’s Cheung Kei Scrambling to Sell London Office Assets as Debt Deadline Looms 
Chen Hongtian of Cheung Kei
Creditors Seize Cheung Kei Hong Kong HQ, Chairman’s Luxury Homes
Ng Kiat Mapletree (1)
Mapletree Logistics Trust Buying APAC Portfolio From CBRE IM for $687M

Sponsored Features

TE Capital's Solitaire on Cecil
Pair of Floors Sold as TE Capital, LaSalle Launch Cecil Street Office Tower in Singapore
What Do Real Estate Investors Really Want?
Douglas Wu of Fairland
Fairland Creates Spark City Lifestyle Hub to Energise Hong Kong’s Cheung Sha Wan

More Sponsored Features>>

Connect with Mingtiandi

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Real Estate News

  • Capital Markets
  • 2022 Event Calendar
  • MTD TV Archives
  • People
  • Logistics
  • Data Centres
  • Asia Outbound
  • Retail

More Mingtiandi

  • About Mingtiandi
  • Contact Mingtiandi
  • Mingtiandi Membership
  • Newsletter Subscription
  • Advertise
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy
  • Join the Mingtiandi Team


© 2007-2023 China Advertising Media Ltd (Samoa). All rights reserved.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.