Print

Mail

wiki links

China raises young property tycoons

Zheng Yaluan, 73, cries as she tells how workers from Chinese tycoon Zhou Zhengyi's property company attacked her while trying to evict her family and others from their homes in Shanghai in this photo taken on June 5, 2003. Fearing rampant speculation, the government has ordered banks to curb lending for property investment. PHOTO: REUTERS

China's property industry is barely a decade old and its movers and shakers are not a great deal older.

But the "thirty-something" tycoons are quickly earning the trust of foreign investors eager for exposure to an explosive property boom, because of their enthusiasm and business nous.

At 34, Fan Wei (范偉), is a rising star in the first generation of private property developers in half a century. In the past six months, he has struck funding deals for apartment projects with Morgan Stanley and ING's real estate arm.

Fan says his company, Shanghai Forte Land Co Ltd (上海復地集團), was in the right place at the right time.

"The timing was very important and we were lucky to be in the fastest period of growth in China, which provided opportunities for everyone," Fan said of Shanghai Forte's rise from obscurity in 1992 to a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in February that raised US$221 million.

When the government realized struggling state firms could no longer afford to house their workers, it gave the green light to private developers in the early 1990s and mortgages in 1997.

Shanghai Forte stepped up. It has built 10,000 flats in the past decade, tapping frantic demand from a growing middle class clamoring to leave Shanghai's quaint but crumbling brick terrace houses, often with no direct water supply or sewage system.

In the past three years, net profit at Shanghai Forte rocketed 15-fold.

China's New Fortune magazine slots Fan in at 356 on its rich list, with assets of US$30 million, but he refuses to talk about how much he is worth.

At his office across the Huangpu river from the sparkling skyscrapers of Pudong, Shanghai's decade-old business district, Fan says Shanghai Forte will develop 4 million square meters over five years in Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing.

His competitors in the thirty-something brigade of property tycoons include Pan Shiyi, chairman of Soho China Ltd (搜狐), which is considering listing in Hong Kong this year, and Ding Changfeng, Shanghai executive of China Vanke Ltd (萬科集團).

Investors appear undaunted by their youth.

"The days of putting money with local developers and it goes missing are over," said Richard David, chief executive of First China Property Group, a developer set up by Australia's Macquarie Bank and fund manager Schroder Asia Property.

"These young businessmen understand the need for repeat investment," he said. "They're aggressive, ambitious, know the market and understand the mechanics of foreign financing and adapt their businesses to suit."

China's new rich also understand the political leadership and its obsession with social stability at a time of brisk economic change that is widening the gap between rich and poor.

Shanghai Forte's two dozen black Audi cars are tucked away at the side of its office, out of sight of bicycle-pedalling Shanghainese on the riverside road to the gothic buildings foreign banks and traders inhabited before the 1949 revolution.

Fan praises the government for avoiding "gangster capitalism" that some associate with Russia's shift to a market economy.

Fearing rampant speculation, the government has ordered banks to curb lending for property investment. Authorities also introduced an open land tender system last year to improve market transparency, replacing often opaque land sales.

They were stung into action by a scandal at a local property firm headed by tycoon Zhou Zhengyi (周正毅), a former noodle shop owner once ranked China's 11th richest man by Forbes magazine, who is now under house arrest for questionable land deals and fraud.
This story has been viewed 2229 times.