(Bloomberg) -- Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co. beat 14 bidders to buy a fourth plot of land near Hong Kong's former airport.
HNA-controlled Hong Kong International Construction Investment Management Group Co. unit Milway bid HK$7.44 billion ($958 million) for the 9,482 square meter (102,000 square feet) plot, the company said in a stock exchange filing late Wednesday. The four sites will be combined into a single residential project totaling almost 400,000 square feet.
HNA outbid Hong Kong developers Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. and Wheelock Properties Ltd. as well as mainland bidders including China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd., according to a Lands Department statement.
The purchase is the latest overseas foray for Hainan, China-based HNA, which announced more than $30 billion in deals last year. The company in November won a HK$8.84 billion bid for the first site in the Kai Tak area, the most paid for a piece of government land in three-and-a-half years. All in, it has spent HK$27.2 billion on the four plots.
Hong Kong International Construction shares surged 15 percent in early trading in Hong, and were up 6.7% at 9:49 a.m.
HNA, led by aviation tycoon Chen Feng, operates airlines, hotels and tourism businesses and is pursuing an aggressive expansion to capitalize on an anticipated surge in Chinese outbound traffic. The company in October said it will buy a stake in Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and earlier that month agreed to buy the plane leasing business from CIT Group Inc.
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Vercoe in Sydney at pvercoe@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net.
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