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Oscar Liu

Harvey Kong

The CEO of Asia’s largest real estate investment trust has announced his departure, with George Hongchoy Kwok-lung tearfully expressing his reluctance to leave his team after 16 years, despite controversy over his pay package and recent lay-offs.
Ahead of its annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday, Hong Kong-based Link Asset Management said Hongchoy, 63, would ensure a smooth leadership transition while it searched for his successor.
Hongchoy, one of the highest-paid bosses of a listed company in Hong Kong with an annual package of more than HK$70 million (US$9 million), will retire as CEO and executive director by the end of June next year.
Following the shareholder meeting, a tearful Hongchoy appeared at a press briefing, saying he was deeply moved by Link tenants who had told him how improvements to the company’s properties had helped them earn more.
“I do not want to part with my team,” he said as he took out a tissue to wipe his tears.
Hongchoy denied that his departure was related to a recent fall in property investments.
“For good corporate governance, Link’s board has been looking at succession every year since I became CEO, so every year we look at how to prepare our team, how to look for potential successors, and this is a continuous annual exercise,” he said.
“It was not something that was decided overnight; it was a long-drawn plan.”
He added: “I have worked for 40 years. It is time to retire and spend more time with my mother and hobbies.”
Hongchoy, a former investment banker, joined Link in 2009 as chief financial officer before taking on the top job the following year. Link Reit boasted a portfolio of HK$226 billion as of March in assets spanning retail, office and logistics properties.
Link chairman Duncan Owen also defended the CEO’s departure and his pay package.
“It has been a pretty high mileage running a company the size of Link and [for] somebody who is 64 years old at the turn of next year, that is a very good innings,” Owen said.
He said compensation for Link executives had been “significantly moved down” this year.
Owen said the company had conducted a detailed remuneration review over the past year and set up a scheme to increase transparency in how compensation would be calculated and aligned with shareholder returns.

Owen said Link was facing a situation in which there was some pressure on rental income and physical retail, which would require an “adjustment” in its assets and the costs of running the company.
Earlier this month, Link laid off staff as part of a streamlining of “a small number of roles and positions”, without specifying the actual number of people made redundant.
“It is like growing a plant, which needs pruning for more growth,” Hongchoy said about the lay-offs.
Hongchoy’s compensation package has sparked criticism over the years, with the recent lay-offs putting the issue sharply back into focus.
According to the company’s latest annual report, his pay package was HK$70.42 million in the financial year that ended on March 31, although it was 9.8 per cent lower than the year before.
Owen said Hongchoy took home HK$51.1 million after long-term incentive awards, specifically company shares, were deducted.
Despite the cut, he remains one of the highest-paid CEOs of a Hong Kong-listed company, reportedly trailing only Lee Yuan Siong, chief executive of insurer AIA, who took home HK$107 million last year, and CK Hutchison co-managing director Frank Sixt, who earned HK$86.6 million.
Hongchoy also holds 3.86 million shares granted to him by the company between 2021 and the end of March this year. They were valued at HK$167 million based on the share price of HK$43.25 as of Tuesday morning.
On the sidelines of Tuesday’s annual meeting, a minority shareholder spoke to the media and expressed his dissatisfaction with the running of the company in the past few years.
The shareholder said the business should refrain from raising salaries when it was performing poorly or lay off staff amid the current difficult economic climate.
Another minority shareholder said: “Mr Hongchoy was a banker and Link is a property company … which means he is out of place. So the CEO has to be changed.”

The group’s distributable profit to Reit holders grew by 4.6 per cent year on year to HK$7 billion in 2024-25, with revenue growing by 4.8 per cent to HK$14.2 billion.
Link went public in 2004 as Hong Kong’s first real estate investment trust comprising retail properties and parking spaces belonging to the Housing Authority.
It has since expanded into mainland China, Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
According to its 2024-25 annual report, 75.1 per cent of the company’s portfolio is in Hong Kong, 13.9 per cent on the mainland and the rest in other markets.
Investors include US giant BlackRock, which holds a stake of about 9 per cent in the company.
Asked about Link’s prospects, Hongchoy said there were structural changes in the business in Hong Kong and Singapore, including the adverse impact arising from cross-border spending. But he said he believed the company’s regional network could offset some of the effects.
“It has been a privilege and honour to serve as group CEO of Link during a formative period of the organisation’s growth and development,” he said.
“I remain as committed as ever to Link as I work with our chair, board and wider leadership team to further strengthen the foundation for Link’s next chapter.”
Additional reporting by Denise Tsang


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