, Columnist
Perpetual Faith in China
Payment terms suggest a seller keen to bail out of China property.
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Hong Kong's aging billionaires have been reducing investments in China as the economy's prospects dim. The latest sale, by New World Development's Cheng Yu-tung, has a whiff of desperation.
The 90-year-old is selling 20.4 billion yuan (US$3.2 billion) of property projects owned by his private and publicly traded companies to Evergrande Real Estate Group. That brings to more than $5 billion the amount of real estate Cheng-controlled companies have sold to the indebted Chinese developer in a matter of weeks, after a 13.5 billion yuan deal agreed earlier this month.