Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau sets 2 records in 24 hours: diamonds, property

Hong Kong apartment sells for record $76.7 mn AFP AFP – Fri, Dec 25, 2015 6:40 AM AEDT . Property prices in Hong Kong, famous for its sky-high rent and super-rich tycoons, have more than doubled in 6 years due to record low interest rates and a flood of wealthy buyers from mainland China A luxury apartment in Hong Kong sold for a record HK$594.7 million ($76.7 million), days before Christmas, making it the most expensive flat in the city and possibly in Asia, reports said Friday. An unidentified buyer paid more than HK$103,700 per-square-foot for the 5,732 square-foot (532 square-metre) unit at the luxury 39 Conduit Road apartment tower in the southern Chinese city's upmarket Mid-Levels residential area, The Apple Daily and The Standard reported. The condominium, on the 46th floor with a view of the iconic Victoria Harbour and a 1,754 square-feet rooftop, had a list price of HK$646.48 million on developer Henderson Land Properties' website. The price beats the previous record HK$470 million paid for a luxury unit which takes up the entire eighth floor of the Opus Hong Kong, a 12-storey residential building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, in 2012. Henderson Land was not available for comment Friday, a public holiday. This comes as analysts said a US interest rate hike could put an end to the housing boom in the Chinese city which maintains a decades old peg with the US dollar. Hong Kong-based brokerage CLSA warned the residential market was at a "turning point", with prices possibly dropping 17 percent by 2017, while other firms have tipped falls of up to 30 percent. Hong Kong's de facto central bank last Thursday raised its base interest rate by 25 points to 0.75 percent after the US Federal Reserve announced its first rate increase in more than nine years. But chief analyst for Midland Realty Buggle Lau said the record-breaking purchase does not reflect the bigger picture of the overall property market in the city. "The super-rich, I don't think the small increase in the interest rates have any impact on their purchasing power," Lau said. "This is exceptional, it can't reflect the whole market," which he described overall as "sluggish". Property prices in Hong Kong, famous for its sky-high rent and super-rich tycoons, have more than doubled in six years due to record low interest rates and a flood of wealthy buyers from mainland China. Many residents complain they can no longer afford decent accommodation in the city of seven million people, and analysts say property ownership is out of reach even for the upper middle class. =================================================================================== Date November 13, 2015 Read later Frederik Balfour Joseph Lau, 64, made his fortune in real estate. Photo: Gcmt Pure coincidence or impeccable timing? Either way, Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau has just pulled off a twofer for the history books. On Wednesday night he paid 48.6 million Swiss francs ($67.92 million) at Sotheby's in Geneva for a 12.03-carat blue diamond, the most ever spent on a gem at auction. Then, less than 24 hours later, his company Chinese Estates Holdings Ltd sold an office tower in Hong Kong for $HK12.5 billion ($2.25 billion), more than twice the previous record for a commercial sale. Mr Lau, 64, who made his fortune in real estate, has been on a buying spree, collecting paintings from blue-chip artists as well as jewellery. He also generated headlines last year when he was convicted in Macau for bribery and money laundering in a trial he didn't attend. He's appealing the conviction. Mr Lau's company sold the 26-storey Mass Mutual Tower in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district to Chinese developer Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd. Chinese Estates paid HK$460 million for the tower when it bought part of it in 1987 and the rest in 1991, yielding a 27-fold return. Advertisement It was the company's third property sale to Evergrande this year, said Chinese Estates spokeswoman Eunice Yeung. In July, it sold a residential, commercial and hotel complex in the western Chinese city of Chengdu for HK$6.5 billion. The company sold another property in nearby Chongqing for HK$1.75 billion. The previous most-expensive transaction for an office tower in Hong Kong was the HK$5.4 billion paid by Citigroup Inc. to a unit of Wheelock & Co. in 2014. Lichtenstein painting Mr Lau has also been busy on the auction circuit this year. On May 12 he picked up Roy Lichtenstein's painting "The Ring (Engagement)" at Sotheby's New York auction for $41.7 million, just a day after purchasing Pablo Picasso's "Buste de femme" across town at Christie's for $67.4 million. Unlike Liu Yiqian, a Chinese billionaire collector who this week bought an Amedeo Modigliani nude for $170.4 million and pays for his purchases using his AMEX card, Mr Lau wired the money to the two auction houses in New York, according to copies of receipts obtained by Bloomberg. Mr Lau's diamond purchase on Nov. 11 came a day after he paid 28.7 million Swiss francs for a 16.08-carat pink diamond at a sale by Christie's in Geneva. Both purchases were made for his seven-year-old daughter Josephine, his office said. Known as the "Blue Moon," the record-breaking gem had a pre-sale estimate of 34.2 million francs to 53.7 million francs, according to Sotheby's website, and has the highest possible colour grade of fancy vivid blue. Mr Lau renamed it "The Blue Moon of Josephine" and christened the pink diamond "Sweet Josephine." Bribery conviction Last year he bought pieces of jewellery for another daughter, 13-year-old Zoe: the 9.75-carat "Zoe Diamond" for $32.6 million at Sotheby's New York, and the "Zoe Red" ruby for HK$65 million ($8.4 million) at Christie's Hong Kong. Not all headline news about Mr Lau has been good. In March 2014 he stepped down as chairman of Chinese Estates after he was convicted in Macau for bribery and money laundering in connection with land secured for a luxury housing project. Mr Lau, who did not attend the trial, was sentenced to five years and three months in prison. As Hong Kong and Macau do not have an extradition treaty, he remains free. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/hong-kong-billionaire-joseph-lau-sets-2-records-in-24-hours-diamonds-property-20151112-gkxy1f.html#ixzz3vQjhISwW Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook ===================================================== Tallest Seattle Tower Said to Sell for Over $700 Million by empty text Hui-yong Yu empty text June 4, 2015 A group led by Gaw Capital Partners agreed to buy Columbia Center, Seattle’s tallest tower, for more than $700 million, said two people with knowledge of the deal. The price would be a record for an individual office building in the city. Gaw Capital, the Hong Kong-based property investment company led by Goodwin Gaw, is joining with other Asian investors to buy the 76-story building, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the sale is private. The seller is Boston-based Beacon Capital Partners, which in 2007 paid $621 million for the tower, at the time the highest price paid for a single Seattle office building, according to property-research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc. Columbia Center is the second-tallest U.S. building west of Chicago, after U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. Brokerage Eastdil Secured LLC is representing Beacon in the sale. Foreign investors are flocking to U.S. real estate for returns that exceed yields on fixed-income assets with a similar moderate-risk profile. Seattle’s large base of technology jobs has helped make the city one of the top U.S. markets for property investors. Sylvia Lee, a Gaw Capital spokeswoman, said she had no immediate comment. Andy Wattula, the Beacon executive who oversees asset management and acquisitions in the Pacific Northwest, declined to comment. Gaw Capital’s planned purchase was cited in a May 29 report by CBRE Group Inc., the world’s biggest commercial-property broker. Columbia Center, at 701 Fifth Ave., has about 1.5 million square feet (139,400 square meters). There’s an observatory on the 73rd floor and a private club on the top two floors. Occupancy at the property, built in 1985, is about 87 percent. Amazon.com Inc. had been the main tenant in Columbia Center before it left for a new headquarters campus starting in 2010. Its departure coupled with the financial crisis left the building more than a third empty. Beacon renegotiated the debt, added amenities and signed new tenants including Dropbox Inc., a Web service for sharing files.

In China's Chongqing, dismay over downfall of Bo Xilai

Fri, Mar 16 05:58 AM EDT

By Chris Buckley

CHONGQING, China (Reuters) - The "stick men" of China's sprawling riverside city of Chongqing at first didn't believe that Bo Xilai, the charismatic and ambitious local Communist Party chief, had been pushed out by national leaders.

Before his downfall, Bo appeared to be on his way to a place at the very centre of power, bringing with him the vision of bold socialist growth that had made him so popular in this teeming southwestern city.

The weather-beaten stick men, who tote luggage on bamboo poles up and down the city's steep hillsides, were meant to be among the beneficiaries of his plans to improve life for farmers and migrant workers.

"Has he retired or something? What's the matter? Wasn't he at the national parliament last week?," asked Cao Changde, a luggage carrier in Chongqing who said he could not read and did not watch television.

"Bo Xilai was a good man. He made life a lot better here," he added as he waited for work near luxury shops.

That sentiment could challenge the government on a much wider stage if it mounts a campaign to discredit or punish Bo.

It is far from clear whether his political demise is simply personal or also means the end of the "Chongqing model" of more equal growth that he championed.

Bo, 62, was sacked on Thursday, a day after a very public rebuke by Premier Wen Jiabao.

His chances of entering the inner circle had already dimmed after Vice Mayor Wang Lijun, previously his longtime police chief, turned up in February at the U.S. consulate in nearby Chengdu, where he stayed until he was coaxed out and placed under investigation.

Despite the success of his policies, which spurred rapid development on the streets of Chongqing and Dalian where he was previously mayor, his Communist Red revival campaigns had alarmed members of the top leadership like Premier Wen, who had suffered the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.

His brash style and ill-disguised efforts to campaign for high office also ran counter to Communist Party practice of emphasizing collective leadership over personality cults.

In short, Bo's self promotion appeared to rub the party elite the wrong way, and when the Wang Lijun incident broke, he was left to fend for himself.

MAOISTS, LEFT-WING INTELLECTUALS

The former commerce minister, who favors sharp business suits, attracted an unlikely but ardent following among Maoists, left-wing intellectuals hoping to break free of market dominance, and ordinary Chinese yearning for a fairer society.

Some of his supporters told Reuters they believed there had been a conspiracy to trash Chongqing's bold experiment.

"They're using this to attack Chongqing and attack Bo Xilai," said Fan Jinggang, the general manager of Utopia, a Beijing-based website and bookstore that espouses leftwing ideas inspired by Mao Zedong and Karl Marx.

On Friday, the website of Utopia was inaccessible. A staff member who answered the telephone said it was a "technical problem", and would not elaborate.

Bo's effort to wrap himself in socialist rectitude was helped by his status a "princeling", a child of the founding revolutionary elite who served under Mao.

He was as coy in public as other politicians about hopes for a spot in the next Standing Committee, the inner core of party power. Yet his frequent, often flamboyant public appearances left few doubts about his ambitions.

The secretive selection process culminates in a Communist Party Congress late in 2012, when the current leaders give up their party posts, and a national parliament session in early 2013, when they step down from their government positions.

Bo's economic model has yielded China's highest growth rates.

From 2007 to last year, Chongqing's economy grew an average annual 15.8 percent, according to government data. In 2011 it was 16.4 percent, the fastest growing urban region and ahead of Shanghai and Beijing, according to Chongqing government data.

Last year, Bo announced plans to grant 5 million of rural residents permanent urban residential status over 5 years. He also vowed to shrink the ratio between average urban and rural incomes from 3.3 to 1, to 2.5 to 1. Carved out of Sichuan province as an independent political unit in 1997, Chongqing includes both city and a broad swath of countryside.

NARROWING INEQUALITY A PRIORITY

Accelerating urbanization and narrowing inequality are top priorities for the Communist Party, which fears they could result in unrest and threaten its grip on power.

That has created a receptive audience among party officials for new ideas to address in the run-up to the coming leadership handover.

"The problems that didn't demand a solution before are becoming urgent," said Zhang Musheng, a retired central government official. "There's now growing competition over the options to tackle these problems."

As late as last Friday, Bo had sounded combative about his future and the Chongqing model, using his last media briefing before his dismissal to deride foes.

"If only a minority of people are wealthy, then we would be heading towards capitalism and we would have failed. If a new capitalist class emerges, then we'll really have taken the wrong route," he told a room jammed with journalists and Chongqing delegates to the national parliament.

"Some comrades have the mentality that only after the cake has grown big can you talk about how to slice it," he said.

"But that's not my view. Only if the cake is sliced well does everyone have the enthusiasm so the cake can grow bigger."

DISMAY AT BO'S DEPARTURE

The smoggy skyline of Chongqing is broken up by apartment blocks that have shot up along with the city's GDP. They include the "Minxin Jiayuan" complex, the city's flagship effort to provide subsidized rental housing for poorer residents moving in from the countryside.

Some of them were upset by Bo's sudden departure.

"Bo Xilai did many things for Chongqing. He changed it a lot. Look around you and you can see that," said resident Zhang Hongsong.

The announcement of Bo's departure carried by the Chongqing government's official microblog garnered hundreds of supportive comments for him. Beyond his economic policies, Bo is popular for his aggressive campaign to crackdown on organised crime.

Liu Shan'er, a small man in his 60s selling pineapple slices on sticks on a Chongqing street, said he had seen the television news report about Bo's dismissal.

"They didn't say anything about the good things he did. Not one word," said Liu. "I'm not saying he's all good. We ordinary people never know that much. But could he be all bad?"

But like other residents, Liu tempered his dismay with resignation. "We ordinary folks are just like trees that have to sway with the wind," he said. "There's no good making a fuss. We just have to live with the leaders who get appointed."

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Don Durfee and Jonathan Thatcher)