Commentary: Have Hong Kong’s bloated property giants had a change of heart?

HONG KONG: One reason Hong Kong protesters have turned their focus so quickly from a controversial extradition law to income inequality is simmering anger at the cost of housing in the worlds least affordable market by far.

A target of their resentment is the territorys property tycoons, who with the help of a pliant local government have for years kept housing supply far lower than demand, amassing land holdings but developing them at a rate that ensured rising prices.

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That formula is now at risk, with even Beijing starting to criticise the most prominent developers.

But while neighbouring Shenzhen gives rise to some of the worlds most innovative companies, helping its economy eclipse that of the former British colony, few of the Hong Kong businesses are trying to adapt to tomorrows world.

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THE JOURNEY OF HONG KONGS PROPERTY TYCOONS

In seminars on the “Greater Bay Area”, the mega project to create a vast business and innovation hub by linking southern Chinese cities with a combined population of 70 million, they have little more to offer than their capability in providing buildings for incubators – although there are not many Hong Kong start-ups to occupy them.

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An exception is Nan Fung, which is putting its success on the line by forging an entirely new path for itself.

Property was not always the only route to prosperity in the city. When millions of immigrants arrived in the wake of the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese civil war, the wealthiest of the new residents were industrialists from the eastern cities of Shanghai and Ningbo.

READ: Commentary: Out of reach? The unaffordability of housing fuelling the Hong Kong protests

These manufacturers transformed the colonys economy, building the citys fortunes along with their own. Among them was Chen Din Hwa, who fled to Hong Kong in 1949, established a series of textile mills and five years later founded Nan Fung.

The textile mills were shuttered just over a decade ago, long after they became uneconomic, in part because Mr Chen was reluctant to move his operations to the mainland as costs rose in his adopted home. Some of the buildings that housed the operations have been turned into a museum and a centre to encourage technological innovation in fashion.

And the company is now known primarily as a property group.

NAN FUNGS EVOLUTION

Nan Fung is one of a group of developers that has been marginalised over time as the biggest, including Cheung Kong, Henderson Land, New World Development and Sun Hung Kai became ever more dominant.

Now the third generation of the family is trying to change the groups identity for the third time by using its capital to buy into the entirely new field of life sciences.

“We started thinking about what should be next,” says Vincent Cheung, the Nan Fung managing director and chief operating officer who is spearheading the shift.

It initially spent US$1.5 billion acquiring expertise, first investing in funds five years ago and then establishing its own venture capital funds in 2017. Nan Fung has invested in 45 companies and 27 funds to date, as well as its own funds operating out of Shanghai and Read More – Source