According to Bloomberg , this is a painful fall for 57-year-old Pan, when he held the 4th richest position in Asia in 2015 with a fortune of 27 billion USD.
However, after shares of Goldin Financial Group he owns and most of his assets become collateral for loans, he is no longer on the list of the 500 richest people in the world. .
Pan’s initial wealth came not from real estate, but from trading and then manufacturing electronics. This is an area in which he ventured into investment after moving from California to Hong Kong.
Mr. Pan turned to invest in real estate in 2008, a time when the Hong Kong real estate boom created countless rich people and made it one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. .
Now, he and many other investors in the city - who over-borrowed during the market boom - lost a lot of money as Hong Kong plunged into an unprecedented recession due to love. instability and pandemic.
Tang Shing-bor - A veteran investor known as the "King of the Shopper" - who owns a huge amount of retail real estate - is now looking to sell properties worth billions of dollars.
A group of investors paid $ 5.2 billion for The Center in the world’s most expensive office deal. However, they were unable to do better when the market slowed down last year.
Meanwhile, Mr. Pan and Goldin Financial owe a debt of HK $ 38 billion ($ 4.9 billion) from May 2017 to September 2020 for four real estate properties in Hong Kong, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company’s filings last month show that at least $ 1 billion of that is currently unpaid and belongs to Goldin.
The latest figures show that Goldin’s net debt / EBITDA ratio is about 9 times by the end of 2018. Meanwhile, this ratio of Sun Hung Kai Properties - Hong Kong’s largest developer, at the end of 2019 was 2 , 3 times and HKR International is about 2 times.
Even a $ 1.1 billion loan last September from CK asset Holdings Ltd., backed by Hong Kong’s second richest man Li Ka-shing, wasn’t enough to help revive Goldin Financial.
Mr. Pan moved from making consumer electronics such as telephones and MP3 players to real estate since 2008. He also changed the name of his electronics corporation to Goldin Properties Corporation. At the same time, he bought another listed company and named it Goldin Financial. In 2017, Goldin Properties was delisted and Mr. Pan both held dominant stakes in both companies.
Goldin Financial’s fall stems from Mr. Pan’s strategy to split property ownership between the company and himself.
From 2011 to 2020, Mr. Pan and Goldin Financial bought a shopping mall and two residential properties. Goldin Financial holds a 60% stake while Mr. Pan holds the remaining 40%. The ownership structure is similar in lot 3.
But in early 2018, Mr. Pan decided he wanted full ownership of one of the residential real estate and holds a majority stake in another area in Kowloon - where there is good profit potential.
In return, he sold his shares in the other two properties to the company. It includes a 40% stake in Goldin Financial Global Center and an expensive piece of land near Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak airport.
According to Bloomberg ’s sources , Mr. Pan became a sole underwriter on a HK $ 7.19 billion loan for one of the residential development projects. At least 4 banks involved in the loan did not agree to the terms of the agreement and declined. This makes it even more difficult for Goldin Financial to access the next credit lines.
Pan has yet to give an answer, but according to a Goldin Financial spokesman, Mr. Pan’s investments are not related to the company and the company will not provide financial information. information in addition to the information given earlier.
Project Kai Tak subsequently failed. At the end of 2019, Goldin Financial could not mobilize any loans to start this project. Goldin Financial had to sell the land for HK $ 3.5 billion, less than half the amount it spent in 2018.
The company’s skyscraper is the main asset for its creditors to tear after Goldin Financial fails to pay off its debts in time. In July, the creditor of the HK $ 3.4 billion loan asked Goldin to pay off immediately, while the creditor holding HK $ 6.8 billion of the corporate bond threatened to take over. This collateral building.
Finally, those involved in the above bonds successfully filed with the Hong Kong High Court demanding takeover of this 27-story building and they were granted rights in September 2020. They sold this building after several months of bidding.
In a statement on Sunday, Goldin said, the sale of the skyscraper is enough to pay both loans and bonds. But after this deal, Goldin will change from the position of the owner to rent because the building is also the headquarters of the company.
