Mike Cai Wensheng, the co-founder of the Chinese selfie app Meitu, has bought a redevelopment site in the heart of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay shopping district, picking up his second property in three months as shops and offices are going for discounts amid the city’s supply glut.
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Cai paid HK$750 million (US$95.5 million) for a site measuring 5,388 sq ft (500 square metres) at 20-28 Cannon Street, formerly known as Sun On Mansion. The transaction for the commercial site, located between Jaffe Road and Gloucester Road, was completed earlier this month, according to the Land Registry.
The property was sold by the local developer Winland Group, which spent around HK$1.45 billion to consolidate ownership of the site through private purchases and a compulsory sale process that was completed in 2021. That implied that Cai had bought the site with a 48 per cent discount from the last compulsory valuation.
Construction of a 26-storey office tower by Winland had already been under way before the site was sold to Cai. Based on an estimated permissible gross floor area of 81,300 sq ft, the purchase price worked out to around HK$9,215 per square foot.
The building will most likely be used for “entrepreneurship and technology development,” Cai said, adding that plans are “not fully confirmed yet”.
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