Evergrande founder’s Black’s Link mansion finds a buyer after year-long fire sale

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The 5,171-square foot mansion at 10B Black’s Link, previously held by an Evergrande executive, sold last month for HK$448 million, according to Land Registry data

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Aerial photograph of 10B Black’s Link, previously connected with the executives of China Evergrande Group, was ordered to wind up by a Hong Kong court in January. Photo: Handout

Cheryl ArcibalandSalina Li

Published: 5:00pm, 12 Jun 2024Updated: 5:52pm, 12 Jun 2024

A mansion at one of Hong Kong’s most exclusive neighbourhoods found its buyer after a fire sale and 15 months on the auction block, offering a minor victory for China Evergrande Group’s liquidators as they grapple to sell the defunct developer’s assets.

The 5,171-sq ft mansion at 10B Black’s Link, previously held by an Evergrande executive, sold last month for HK$448 million (US$57.35 million), according to the Land Registry. The price was 44 per cent less than the HK$800 million that valuers had estimated the property to be worth.

The buyer of the two-storey mansion, located near the Hong Kong Cricket Club and one of the island’s favourite trekking trails, was Sassicaia Company Limited, a privately owned company. The two directors of Sassicaia, registered in April, are the Singapore passport holder Lim Choi Hwee, and a Bermuda-registered company called Bartley Directors, which uses an agent in Hong Kong as its company secretary.

The sale showed that liquidators and receivers are making progress in their attempt to unravel the web of debt owed by Evergrande and its founder Hui Ka-yan, as they work through an estimated US$300 billion of liabilities after the developer’s liquidation in January. Overnight, Evergrande’s car-making unit was ordered to return 1.9 billion yuan (US$261.9 million) it received in subsidies from various local authorities after it failed to fulfil its production goals.

China Evergrande Group’s founder and chairman Hui Ka-yan at a meeting in Wuhan, China on June 5, 2017. Photo: AFP

The property was put up for sale by receivers in March 2023 to recover unpaid bills after being seized by China Construction Bank (Asia) in November 2022. Along with two adjacent mansions 10C and 10E, the three properties were remortgaged in late 2021 for HK$1.1 billion, compared with their combined valuation of HK$1.5 billion.