China Evergrande Group, which is in deep debt crisis (03333-HK), still seeking to sell assets for cash. Cheung Kong Group, a subsidiary of the Li Ka-shing family, confirmed that the company has entered the bid for Evergrande’s Hong Kong headquarters building, but Evergrande did not respond to the news.
Hong Kong China Evergrande Center is a Grade A office building, adjacent to Hong Kong Admiralty and Wanchai MTR stations, Hong Kong Police Headquarters, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, and adjacent to Victoria Harbour.
The founder of China Real Estate, Liu Luanxiong, spent HK$460 million to buy the building. On November 12, 2015, the indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of China Evergrande purchased this landmark building with a sea view from the indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of China Real Estate for HK$12.5 billion. It set a record for the largest commercial building transaction in Hong Kong at that time.
For Evergrande, although it is difficult to deal with huge debts by selling its current assets, the selling action can at least let the outside world know that Evergrande is still actively disposing of assets and actively dealing with debts.
Although Evergrande has been disposing of assets to repay debts, what is more difficult now is that the market seems to have lost patience with Evergrande, which may be the reason for the eagerness to sell the Evergrande Center in Hong Kong.
Why Li Ka-shing wants to buy it has also attracted the interest of the outside world. Many people said that behind the recent acquisition, there is not only the urgent need for Evergrande to realize the funds, but also represents Li Ka-shing’s asset transfer and investment trend.
In April of this year, following the sale of British assets, Li Ka-shing was mainly interested in Vietnam. However, in the first round of land auctions in Guangzhou this year, Li Ka-shing’s Hutchison Whampoa also quietly appeared, and participated in the public auction for the first time in ten years. down, but also draws attention.
Mainland media quoted industry insiders and concluded that Li Ka-shing’s 9 billion bargain hunt for Evergrande was definitely not to relieve Xu Jiayin, nor was it a so-called “falling down”, “this is completely a commercial transaction.”
