The original Country Garden lost 50 billion yuan in half a year. In addition to the Yang Huiyan family, there are two major families in Hong Kong.

After Evergrande fell, Country Garden couldn’t hold on. Country Garden, a mine that many people can’t think of, came to expect the unexpected. Country Garden was still denying rumors before, but I didn’t expect that Country Garden suddenly came out and said that it had encountered the biggest difficulty after the company was established. The latest news is that 11 domestic bonds of Country Garden have been suspended.

Country Garden also released a data, that is, the estimated loss in the first half of 2023 is as high as 50 billion. Now the market value of Country Garden has fallen to more than 20 billion, and at its peak, the market value of Country Garden exceeded 200 billion. According to the current situation, the next trend is still unclear.

The huge losses made Country Garden’s shares and debts double-kill, and the major shareholder Yang Huiyan’s family also suffered heavy losses. Country Garden’s market value plummeted, causing the value of their stocks to plummet. However, many people can’t imagine that besides the Yang Huiyan family, there are actually two Hong Kong families, one is the Lee Shau Kee family, and the other is the Zheng Yutong family.

Country Garden was listed in 2007, and Lee Shau Kee, Zheng Yutong, Guo Henian and other Hong Kong tycoons all joined the company. This is why the market value of Country Garden can reach more than 130 billion when it was listed. Lee Shau Kee’s private investment in that year was 1 billion.

Zheng Yutong’s investment is not as bad. In those years, Hong Kong bosses frequently invested in mainland companies, and Zheng Yutong also cooperated with Liu Luanxiong and Zhang Songqiao to invest in Evergrande.

In 2014, Lee Shau Kee also bought $250 million in Country Garden bonds at one time. Lee Shau Kee and Zheng Yutong have a good personal relationship with Yang Guoqiang, the founder of Country Garden. They are both from Shunde. Lee Shau Kee and Yang Guoqiang once built a charity project together in Shenzhen.

I don’t know whether the two families, Lee Shau Kee and Zheng Yutong, still hold shares in Country Garden. If they still do, then this time it’s really a loss. Lee Shau Kee and Zheng Yutong, of course, the strength of the two families is very strong, even if the loss of 1.8 billion is not too big a problem.

Lee Shau Kee, together with Zheng Yutong, is known as the four richest people in Hong Kong. They have been on par with Li Ka-shing for many years. The strength of Lee Shau Kee and Zheng Yutong is actually greatly underestimated. Their assets on the wealth list are only $20 billion to $30 billion. But in fact, their real strength is far more than that.

Lee Shau Kee controls six listed companies, of which Henderson Land’s total assets exceed 500 billion, and the company’s liabilities are less than 200 billion, which means the company’s net assets exceed 300 billion. Among these assets of more than 500 billion, there are more than 260 billion investment properties, with which billions of rents can be collected every year.

That is to say, even if Lee Shau Kee no longer develops real estate projects, it will only rely on rent collection, and there will be billions of rents every year. Rent collection is almost the best business in the world, because the risk is very small, and the drought and flood guarantee the harvest.

Henderson Land is also one of the four major real estate companies in Hong Kong. The best office building international financial center in Hong Kong was jointly developed by Lee Shau Kee, Sun Hung Kai and Hong Kong Metro. Lee Shau Kee holds more than 40% of the rights and interests in this building, and this part of the rights and interests alone can collect 23 billion yuan in rent every year.

In addition, Lee Shau Kee also controlled China Gas, the only natural gas company in Hong Kong. The company’s annual profit is also 6.7 billion, and the profit is very stable. The natural gas in Hong Kong is controlled by China Gas. At the same time, Ganghua Gas, a subsidiary of China Gas, also controls the natural gas business in dozens of cities in the Mainland. Lee Shau Kee also has a huge private investment fund. In 2013, he revealed that his fund had more than 130 billion assets. When Lee Shau Kee established this fund, it injected 50 billion yuan.

Zheng Yutong is also greatly underestimated. Zheng Yutong married Zhou Cuiying, the daughter of Chow Tai Fook’s boss Zhou Zhiyuan, and then he took over Chow Tai Fook. But at that time, Chow Tai Fook was just a gold shop. Later, Zheng Yutong developed Chow Tai Fook to Hongkong, and reformed Chow Tai Fook with modern company operation mode, which achieved great success.

In the 1950s, Zheng Yutong established New World Real Estate and began to develop its real estate business in Hong Kong. With the development of Hong Kong real estate in the 1960s, New World was successfully listed in 1972.

From 1970s to 1980s, Zheng Yutong’s strength developed rapidly. On the one hand, he vigorously developed real estate, on the other hand, he vigorously developed jewelry business, and his career was in full swing.

In the middle and late 1980s, Zheng Yutong, Li Ka-shing, Lee Shau Kee and others had been called the four richest people in Hong Kong. Zheng Yutong himself died in 2016, and now his career is inherited by his grandson Zheng Zhigang. Not long ago, Zheng Zhigang took out more than 30 billion yuan at one time and privatized the new creation. This more than 30 billion is real money taken out from their family, which also shows the strength of their family. Even if we lose some money in Country Garden, it will be too big a problem for Lee Shau Kee and Zheng Yutong family. But not for the Yang Guoqiang family.