Tycoon Li Ka-shing has sold a Shanghai office and retail complex to a company majority owned by China Life Insurance Co for 20 billion yuan ($2.95 billion), paring his investment on the mainland while the yuan has taken a tumble.
Li’s Cheung Kong Property Holdings and the Li Ka Shing Foundation agreed to sell their combined 100 per stake in the Century Link complex in Pudong’s Lujiazui district to a company that’s been set up for the purchase, according to a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
“The disposal enables the company to realise its investment” and it expects to record an unaudited gain of about HK$6.22 billion after the transaction, CK Property said in its statement.
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The Century Link complex comprises two 34-storey towers and a retail podium in Lujiazui. The buyer of the complex is a specially set-up company majority owned by China Life.
The remaining minority stake in the buyer is owned by closed-end funds managed by ARA Fund Management, in which CK Property owns 7.8 per cent.
It is probably the largest property transactions in Shanghai. The announcement come five days after China Life led the acquisition of a US$2 billion stake in American hotels owned by Starwood Capital Group.
In Hong Kong, CK Property is selling The Center – the tallest building in its portfolio- at 99 Queen’s Road, in Central with an asking price of HK$35 billion.
Cheung Kong owns 48 storeys in The Center building after Malaysian developer Guoco Group bought 11 floors in 1997.
(Source: SCMP)