The Li clan* don't get caught on the wrong side of trends very often.
From Bloomberg, September 2/3:
Hong Kong’s prime shopping districts once commanded the highest rents in
the world. Now they’re hollowing out as Chinese consumers disappear.
In Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui district, the mock-classical 1881 Heritage mall used to lure queues of mainland Chinese tourists eager to shop at boutiques operated by brands such as Tiffany, Cartier and Chopard. Now it attracts neither crowds nor brands. Only three of the more than 30 units at the mall owned by billionaire Li Ka-shing’s CK Asset Holdings Ltd. are occupied, and its colonnaded courtyards are quiet.
On nearby Canton Road, a shop previously rented by Swatch Group AG’s Omega for about HK$7.5 million ($962,000) a month is leased to a bank for 80% less, according to real estate agents familiar with the deal. Over in Causeway Bay’s Russell Street, a Transformers-themed fast-food restaurant has taken the place of Burberry Plc. Its rent is 89% below the HK$8.8 million the British firm was forking out in 2019, the agents said, declining to be identified because the matter is private.
China’s collapse in high-end spending has shaken investor confidence in luxury brands across the globe as companies from LVMH to Richemont and L’Oreal report falling sales in the region. Nowhere is the scale of that decline in demand more evident than Hong Kong, which was for many years the favored destination for China’s nouveau riche to splurge on designer handbags and Swiss watches.
"Hong Kong's luxury market was once a paradise, but now it's fallen into the abyss," said Edwin Lee, founder of Bridgeway Prime Shop Fund Management Ltd., which owns a portfolio of retail properties across Hong Kong. "The days when tourists came to Hong Kong to buy luxury products without thinking are gone."....
*Sir Li Ka-shing is still alive but at age 96 he's turned over the reins to various parts of the empire to his sons.
Also at Bloomberg, this time August 22:
China Vows to Quicken Buying Unsold Homes for Public Housing
