Billionaire Power Couple Steps Down From Leadership At Soho China

Asia Billionaire Power Couple Steps Down From Leadership At Soho China Russell Flannery Forbes Staff Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Sep 7, 2022, 03:01am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Zhang Xin, right, speaks as Pan Shiyi looks on during a news conference in Hong Kong in 2016. .

. . [+] Photographer: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg © 2016 Bloomberg Finance LP Soho China, one of China’s largest and best-known real estate developers, said today co-founding billionaire couple Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin have stepped down from their leadership roles as chairman and CEO “in order to focus on supporting the arts and philanthropic pursuits.

” Soho said Huang Jingsheng, an independent non-executive director, had been appointed as nonexecutive chairman effective today, replacing Pan. Xu Jin and. Qian Ting, long-time executives, would become co-CEOs, succeeding Zhang.

The moves come after U. S. investment firm Blackstone Group offered to purchase a majority of the Beijing-headquartered company in a transaction worth $3 billion last year.

The purchase later fizzled on “a lack of progress. ” Blackstone had offered HK$5 a share; Soho China closed at HK$1. 36 yesterday.

Shares shot up by nearly 10% today at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after the new leaders were announced. The high-profile departures come as China’s economy faces slowing economic growth in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic and heightened geopolitical tension between China and the United States under current Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. China’s real estate industry faces years of stress following overbuilding and debt that have cut heavily into the fortunes of the country’s richest property developers.

Xi, who is seen as seeking a third term as the party’s most powerful figure this year, has also promoted “common prosperity” in a push to narrow an income gap between rich and poor in the world’s most populous nation. China, currently the world’s No. 2 economy, is home to the world’s second-largest number of billionaires after the United States.

MORE FOR YOU China Detains Fallen HNA Ex-Billionaire Chairman Ahead Of Airline Restructuring Vote Nasdaq Listing Of Freshworks Creates Windfall For Indian Founder And Hundreds Of Employees Ninja Van Becomes Singapore’s Newest Unicorn After Raising $578 Million From Alibaba, B Capital Founded in 1995, Soho China as of last year owned approximately 1. 3 million square meters of real estate, largely in Shanghai and Beijing. Distinctive projects with architect Zaha Hadid, who died in 2016, helped to put the couple and Zhang on the global real estate map.

Pan and Zhang are worth a combined $2. 8 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List today. See related posts: The 10 Richest Chinese Billionaires China Billionaire Guo Guangchang’s Flagship Fosun Int’l Plunges to Nine-Year Low As Tourism Stake Cut @rflannerychina Send me a secure tip .

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