HSBC Holdings has taken the unusual step of getting directly involved in pushing its Hong Kong subsidiary, Hang Seng Bank, to offload portfolios of bad real estate debt, underscoring growing concerns over the city’s struggling property sector. About two months ago, the lender directed its London-based global chief corporate credit officer and the head of…
In a commercial rental market beset by high vacancy rates, many Hong Kong landlords feel stuck between a rock and a hard place: giving tenants a break on rent makes it harder to pay mortgages and threatens asset value, but holding the line on rent runs the risk of driving tenants away. In this difficult…
Two of Hong Kong’s largest fast-food chains, Cafe de Coral and Fairwood, both suffered a near 30 per cent drop in profits last year, with experts attributing their struggles during the economic downturn to ageing diners and intense competition from delivery platforms. The two companies were considered resilient players during previous downturns caused by global…
In financial markets, the Hong Kong dollar is known as a “widow-maker”, a ruinous trade that inflicts painful losses on successive generations of investors. While betting against Japanese government bonds has been the most notorious widow-maker trade, challenges to Hong Kong’s currency peg to the US dollar date back to the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis…
Some Hong Kong government departments are expected to cut the number of contract staff as authorities seek to reduce spending amid a deficit that is forecast to reach nearly HK$100 billion (US$12.9 billion), the Post has learned. Sources revealed the strategy ahead of Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po’s annual budget address on Wednesday, as academics…
The former Communist Party chief in the province where the Covid-19 outbreak first emerged has been placed under investigation on suspicion of corruption. Jiang, 67, has since been made deputy head of the national legislature’s agricultural and social affairs committees, but on Friday two leading anti-corruption watchdogs announced he had been placed under investigation for…
China’s central bank chief Pan Gongsheng promised to park more of the country’s US$3.2 trillion foreign exchange reserves in Hong Kong, fanning speculation about how much more Beijing can earmark for the city’s assets. Beijing has always guarded the details of its forex portfolio reserves as classified information, so the exact amount of reserve funds…
One HarbourGate East Tower, a premium office building formerly owned by cash-strapped Chinese tycoon Chen Hongtian, has found a new owner after Hong Kong Metropolitan University (HKMU) struck a deal with the receivers, according to people familiar with the matter. The university agreed to pay HK$2.6 billion (US$334 million) for the 15-storey building in Hung…