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Why rate cuts won’t save cash-strapped Hong Kong tycoons and their luxury properties

Hong Kong luxury property market grapples with high interest rates and falling valuations, forcing wealthy owners to sell at big losses

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Credit: Henry Wong
This story is part of a package exploring Hong Kong’s sluggish property market. See the full list here.
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In the first of a two-part series, Salina Li, Aileen Chuang and Jiaxing Li explore the effects of high interest rates on the city’s tycoons and their trophy real-estate holdings.

In the rarefied air up on The Peak, the owner of the penthouse in the Opus Hong Kong development – which has been called the city’s most expensive apartment building – unexpectedly put his unit up for sale.
Some of the city’s wealthiest residents rub shoulders here. But it is rare that a unit in the 12-floor building, which twists upwards toward the clouds and was designed by the famed architect Frank Gehry – his first residential project in Asia – would come on the market for a second-hand sale.

The penthouse belongs to tycoon Chen Changwei, chairman of Hengli Investments, who developed residential and commercial projects in China and managed properties in Hong Kong, London and on the mainland.

The Frank Gehry-designed Opus Hong Kong building. Photo: Handout
The Frank Gehry-designed Opus Hong Kong building. Photo: Handout
The 5,444 sq ft unit, which changed hands for HK$509 million (US$65.3 million) in 2015, was offered with another asset that Chen wanted to offload, some ground floor shops at Pearl City Mansion in Causeway Bay. He bought them from New World Development in 2021 for HK$1.1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
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