Kimbee Chan seeks $600m for Peak pad

Billionaire Joseph Lau Luen-hung's wife, Kimbee Chan Hoi-wan, was said to be asking HK$600 million for a 4,299-square-feet house at Gough Hill Residences on the Peak, marking a per-sq-ft price of around HK$139,600.

The average price per sq ft more than doubled compared to Lau's buying price of HK$180 million 13 years ago, and is also 50 percent higher than Wheelock Properties' new luxury property on 77/79 Peak Road nearby.

The property for sale was purchased by Lau in January 2009 from Parklane Hotel's Chan family, who then gave it to his wife as a gift.

The sale is another attempt by Kimbee Chan, chief executive of Chinese Estate (0127), to cash in by selling holdings. The backer of embattled developer China Evergrande (3333) offloaded a total of 435 million Evergrande shares in two weeks, taking in at least HK$987 million in August based on the lowest closing price during the period, data of Central Clearing and Settlement System showed.

To that end, Lau and Chan's stake in Evergrande slid to 4.68 percent, or 620 million shares, on September 27 from 1.06 billion shares on September 10, lower than the 5 percent disclosure threshold. Therefore their offloading afterward will no longer need to be disclosed.

This came before Chan's proposal to take Chinese Estate private by offering minority shareholders at HK$4 apiece, according to the Hong Kong developer's announcement. The price marked a 38 percent premium to its last traded price as the offer was announced.

However, the offer price came in at a nearly 69.2 percent discount to the company's net asset value per share attributable to shareholders of HK$12.99, as shown by the interim result. The major shareholder said the cancellation price will not be increased.

In other news, Chinese Estates (0127) said it sold senior bonds issued by Kaisa Group (1638) and will record a realized loss of approximately HK$225.89 million. Shares of Kaisa rose 3.3 percent to HK$1.70 yesterday.