Tang Shing-bor, the 84-year-old billionaire known as the “Shop King”, is expanding his portfolio in Sai Kung. It was Tang who bought the 28,500 sq ft supermarket site in Sai Kung Garden for $450 million and evicted Wellcome. Now a filing at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange shows Tang is moving to acquire the industrial site opposite Centro that had been used for paint-making. The deal is reportedly worth a total of $1.43 billion.
The filing describes a complex deal involving property swaps and cash. Tang has turned over an 80-room hotel in Wanchai to CNT Group, owner of the paint-making site. CNT in turn passes ownership of the 143,252 sq ft site on which two four-storey industrial buildings now stand, to Tang.
The deal allows Stan Group, run by Tang’s younger son Stan, to make an $80 million profit on the Wanchai hotel which they bought last year. Stan has emerged as a thrusting entrepreneur in a few years. His group now owns six restaurants, a spa, gym and eight hotels. He will lease back the Wanchai hotel from CNT.
In March the paint maker won Town Planning Board approval to redevelop the Sai Kung property as a residential estate. In the filing CNT said its board had concluded that it was better to take the gain of about $495 million from the property transaction than take on the risks in building a residential estate.
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