Pan Sutong transfers right to develop in Ho Man Tin district to Great Eagle as embattled Hong Kong tycoon gets second bailout

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Pan Sutong’s Goldin Properties Holdings reached a novation agreement to transfer its right to develop Ho Man Tin Station Package One parcel to Great Eagle Group of the Lo family, said MTR Corporation

Great Eagle paid a HK$1 billion (US$129 million) refundable deposit to MTR, according to a separate filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange

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Ho Man Tin MTR subway station at the Ho Man Tin district in Kowloon on November 17, 2016. Photo: Dickson Lee.

Sandy Li

Published: 5:30pm, 2 Mar 2021Updated: 5:30pm, 2 Mar 2021

Pan Sutong, the embattled real estate tycoon facing a breach of contract law suit, has been replaced in a venture in Hong Kong’s Ho Man Tin residential district, the latest twist in the financial struggles of one of the city’s high-flying developers.

Pan’s Goldin Properties Holdings reached a novation agreement to transfer its right to develop Ho Man Tin Station Package One parcel to Great Eagle Group of the Lo family, said MTR Corporation. Great Eagle paid a HK$1 billion (US$129 million) refundable deposit to MTR, according to a separate filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange by the developer.

“[MTR] will work together with Great Eagle to bring this project to completion,” according a statement by the subway operator, which owns land around the city that can be developed into residential, commercial and retail property.

The emergence of Great Eagle is the latest twist in the dramatic rise and fall of Pan, whose Hong Kong-listed Goldin Financial Holdings made headlines in June 2019 when it forfeited HK$25 million in deposit after walking away from its HK$11.1 billion bid for a harbourfront plot of commercial land at the former Kai Tak airport site. Less than a year later, the developer sold a separate plot of residential land at Kai Tak for a record HK$2.57 billion loss.

Goldin Financial Holdings’ chairman Pan Sutong at the Sha Tin racecourse on March 16, 2017. Photo: SCMP

The Ho Man Tin land parcel, which could yield 69,000 square metres (742,716 square feet) of gross floor area capable of housing as many as 1,000 apartment units, could cost HK$10 billion to develop, according to analysts’ estimates.