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HNA Group
Business

HNA’s creditors get the go-ahead to sell global assets in multibillion dollar restructuring, including property in New York, Hong Kong

  • Up for grabs are 321 companies and assets including a 45-storey Manhattan office tower and a villa in Hong Kong’s most exclusive residential address
  • The villa at the Twelve Peaks project at 12 Mount Kellett Road may fetch up to HK$763.4 million, 51 per cent more than its 2015 purchase price

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The check-in counter of Hainan Airlines at the Beijing Capital International Airport on March 6, 2020. Photo: AP
Sandy LiandIris Ouyang
Creditors of the HNA Group have been given the go-ahead to sell its assets after the Hainan High Court in HNA’s home province on Sunday approved the multibillion dollar restructuring of China’s largest corporate bankruptcy case.
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Up for grabs are 321 companies out of more than US$40 billion of HNA’s corporate assets spread out in aviation, airports, finance and commerce, including a 45-storey Manhattan office tower and a luxury villa in Hong Kong’s most exclusive residential address.

Three of the senior executives of HNA’s major offshore arm HNA Group (International), including vice-chairman and chief executive Wang Shuang, are directors of a company called Fortune Runner Hong Kong Investment, the owner of a 4,241-square foot (394 square metres) house in the Twelve Peaks development at 12 Mount Kellett Road on The Peak in Hong Kong. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was appointed on October 21 as the receiver of the house.

“This property should sell for a profit,” said Vincorn Consulting and Appraisal’s managing director Vincent Cheung, who values the property at between HK$633.6 million and HK$763.4 million, or nearly 51 per cent more than its purchase price in 2015. “Prices for houses on The Peak increase rapidly in recent months considering rare supply.”

House 6 at the Twelve Peaks development at 12 Mount Kellett Road at The Peak in Hong Kong on 4 July 2018, registered to a shell company in which the senior executives of HNA Group (International) are directors, according to Hong Kong’s Company Registry data. Photo: Edmond So.
House 6 at the Twelve Peaks development at 12 Mount Kellett Road at The Peak in Hong Kong on 4 July 2018, registered to a shell company in which the senior executives of HNA Group (International) are directors, according to Hong Kong’s Company Registry data. Photo: Edmond So.
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HNA Group, founded by former Chinese civil aviation bureaucrat Chen Feng around the business of Hainan Airlines, grew into one of China’s largest private conglomerates and most profligate offshore asset buyers over two decades. At its peak before scrutiny by Chinese financial regulators led to its break-up, HNA Group owned tens of billions of dollars in assets around the world, from the largest stake in Deutsche Bank to a quarter of Hilton Hotels and Resorts, and four tracts of oceanfront land at Hong Kong’s former Kai Tak airport.
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