Following on Monday's "The Ambani-Merchant Wedding Cost How MUCH???!!!".
From Bloomberg, January 24:
The Ambanis, Mistrys and Jindals lead the region’s surge, while Hong Kong’s storied clans suffer a reversal.
Hong Kong’s old-money families are feeling the chill of China’s economic downturn.
An unprecedented four out of the five Hong Kong dynasties who rank among the 20 richest Asian clans have seen their fortunes erode over the past year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The families — many of whom have substantial chunks of their riches in real estate — are confronting both the slide in the city’s stock market and their exposure to the sustained property crisis in China.
Yet the collective wealth among the region’s richest clans has never been greater: $534 billion, up $55 billion since March, driven by furious growth in India that has bolstered the Ambani, Mistry, Jindal, Birla and Bajaj fortunes.
The divergence is another indication of how the concentration of wealth and power in Asia is shifting as China's growth slows. The nation served for decades as the region's economic power, minting fortunes for those who built businesses tied to its rise. Yet this year, for the first time since 2020, no mainland family appears in the ranking.
Instead, it’s India on the move: This week, its stock market became the fourth-biggest globally, overtaking Hong Kong’s.
One of the most prominent losers in this recalibration are the Chengs of Hong Kong, whose $23.6 billion fortune grew from a single jewelry shop almost a century ago.
Shares in the clan’s flagship operation, builder New World Development Co., sank to a 20-year low this week. The company is much more leveraged than its local peers, and the family's private office channeled almost $3 billion through an acquisition deal last year to shore up the developer’s finances.
All told, the Chengs’ wealth is $2.4 billion lower than it was last year, the first time it has declined since Bloomberg began tracking the data in 2019.
As their fortune cracked, current patriarch Henry Cheng upended the long-held assumption that his son Adrian, New World’s chief executive officer, would take the helm of the empire. He said in November he’s still looking for a successor, and that different family members might just take charge of different businesses. He also didn’t rule out hiring an outsider.
“Appointing different people to lead different parts is a good succession strategy, especially if the underlying businesses are substantial,” said Marleen Dieleman, a professor at IMD Business School who studies family businesses. “But this strategy also unleashes the forces of fragmentation.”
Three of Henry’s children now have top roles at key family-owned business units.
Sonia runs the upmarket Rosewood Hotel chain and was appointed joint vice chairman of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd. in June 2022. Its market value has more than doubled since a Covid low in 2020 and it is now worth four times New World.
And a month after Henry’s comments on the succession, his youngest son Brian, a former investment banker, was appointed as co-CEO of the family’s infrastructure unit, NWS Holdings Ltd.
For many multi-generational dynasties, there can be a sense of deja vu as the decades go by around succession planning and younger leadership. The Chengs are no different.
Back in 1989, when new to the throne, Henry Cheng embarked on a rapid expansion of New World that left the company mired in debt. His father, Cheng Yu-tung, had to step in soon after to orchestrate a series of asset sales to raise much needed capital.
Despite his stumble, Henry went on to cement his status as one of Hong Kong’s premier tycoons, overseeing landmark development projects and Chow Tai Fook’s expansion into the mainland. All eyes are now on whether one of his children can make the same impact....
....MUCH MORE
Keeping in mind the data is over six moths old, here are the top three from Bloomberg's story: