Hong Kong sells record-breaking land to Wharf Holdings, tycoons

[HONG KONG] Wharf Holdings teamed up with Hong Kong property tycoons to win a premium land site in the luxurious Peak area for a record-breaking price.

The consortium includes a Wharf subsidiary, an entity owned by Sino Land's chairman Robert Ng, C C Land Holdings' Cheung Chung Kiu, Chinese Estates Holdings' Chan Hoi Wan and her brother-in-law Thomas Lau. It won the residential land for HK$7.25 billion (S$1.24 billion), a government statement showed late Wednesday.

The 54,541 square foot (5,067 square metres) site can produce a maximum of about 144,970 square feet of floor area. The bidding price translates into HK$50,011 per square foot for the prime land plot, the highest on record for a residential site sold in government tenders.

The plot was previously valued by Midland IC&I at HK$6.8 billion.

The higher-than-expected price reflects the developers' confidence that the city's luxury home market will rebound after the pandemic. Prices of high-end residential properties in Hong Kong fell last year as cross-border travel restrictions made mainland buyers scant.

Luxury home prices dropped 8 per cent in 2020, more than the 1 per cent decline in the mass market, data from Jones Lang LaSalle shows.

Wharf also bought the adjacent residential site for HK$12 billion in December.

Bidders in the tender that missed out included CK Asset Holdings, Henderson Land Development Co, Sun Hung Kai Properties and K Wah International Holdings.

BLOOMBERG