HK sells premium site to Wharf, 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, CC 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$1.2 billion), a government statement showed late on Wednesday.

The 54,541 square-foot 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.

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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 one per cent decline in the mass market, data from Jones Lang LaSalle show.

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, Sun Hung Kai Properties and K Wah International Holdings. BLOOMBERG