New World founder Cheng Yu-tung topped out at 91
The founder of one of Asia’s largest property empires passed away last week leaving behind a $15 billion fortune gathered over nearly 50 years in the region’s real estate industry.
Cheng Yu-tung, who founded New World Development in 1970, and built a Hong Kong gold shop into an affiliated group of companies worth over $19 billion across the jewelry, property and gaming conglomerate, died peacefully on Thursday at the age of 91, according to an announcement by the company.
From Refugee to Tycoon
Cheng, who fled his native Shunde in Guangdong province in 1940 to escape the Japanese invasion of the mainland, first landed in Macau in where he began working as an apprentice in the gold shop of a family friend. After marrying the shop owner’s daughter, Cheng moved to Hong Kong to open a gold shop there in 1946.
By plowing the profits of his growing chain of gold shops into property, Cheng built New World into a Hong Kong-based real estate giant that would rival the empires of fellow billionaires Li Ka-shing of Cheung Kong and Hutchison, Lee Shau-kee of Henderson Land, Stanley Ho Hung-sun of Shun Tak, and the Kwok family of Sung Hung Kai. At the time of his death, Cheng was estimated by Forbes to have amassed Hong Kong’s third largest fortune after Li Ka-shing with $31.3 billion and Lee Shau-kee at $23.9 billion.
Thanks in large part to aggressive investments in mainland assets, Hong Kong-listed New World grew to a market capitalisation of over $12 billion before Cheng’s passing. In mainland China the group has an estimated $17 billion in assets in 24 provinces and municipalities. New World has also been active in southeast Asia through its Rosewood Hotel Group.
Chow Tai Fook, which was listed on the Hong Kong exchange in 2011 has over 1,000 jewelry shops in mainland China, and a market capitalisation of over $7 billion.
No Change Expected in New World Operations
Cheng reportedly suffered a brain hemorrhage four years ago and son Henry Cheng has been chairman of New World since that time. “He had spent the past four years in bed. He was unconscious,” Henry Cheng was quoted as saying the press, with the company reassuring the public that New World and Chow Tai Fook would continue to operate as normal in the wake of Cheng Yu-tung’s passing.
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