Kaisa scion takes major Sing Tao stake for $370m

Sing Tao News Corporation (1105) chairman and major shareholder Charles Ho Tsu-kwok has sold a 28 percent equity in the company to Kwok Hiu-ting for HK$370 million, according to a disclosure of interests on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Kwok Hiu-ting is the daughter of Kwok Ying-shing, the chairman of mainland property giant Kaisa (1638).

Ho sold 246 million shares of the company at HK$1.5 a share to cash out HK$370 million in the over-the-counter market. Following the deal, Ho's shareholding in Sing Tao, the parent company of the The Standard, has been reduced from 31.37 percent to 3.37 percent while Kwok Hiu-ting's 28 percent stake makes her the biggest shareholder of the group.

Sing Tao has not yet released any announcement about the equity change.

Sing Tao halted trading of its shares last Friday and the price before the halt of trading was HK$0.91, meaning that Ho sold his stake for a premium of 65 percent.

Kwok Hiu-ting, 27, is the vice chairwoman and executive director of mainland China property management firm Kaisa Prosperity (2168).

She graduated from the University of Durham, attained a bachelor of business administration in 2016 and then gained a master of science in sustainability management at Columbia University in the City of New York in 2017.

Shenzhen-based Kaisa was founded by the Kwok family in 1999 and the company listed in Hong Kong in 2009.

The market capitalization of Kaisa is HK$22.5 billion and the market capitalization for Kaisa Prosperity is around HK$3 billion. Kwok Ying-shing's son Kwok Hiu-kwan is the co-chief executive of Kaisa and the major shareholder of Convoy Global (1019).

Kwok Ying-shing's family ranked 212 in the Hurun Global Real Estate Rich List 2020, with a total wealth of 9 billion yuan (HK$10.81 billion).

In November 2019, Sing Tao announced that Ho was in discussions with a potential buyer for selling the company equity.

Ho has been the chairman of Sing Tao since 2000 after Sally Aw Sian, the daughter of Sing Tao's founder Aw Boon Haw, transferred the company to Ho's family for repaying debts.

Sally Aw sold the equity to a private fund Lazard Asia in 1999. Ho bought the shares through Global China Group from the fund in 2001.