New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel regularly makes headlines when it hosts celebrities. But in 2014 it made the news for different reasons when China’s Anbang Insurance Group bought the building for $1.95 billion. The bottom line turned some heads, but the Obama administration’s decision to break with tradition and stay at the New York Palace Hotel for the UN General Assembly drew a lot of attention. A Chinese company buying property in the US, Anbang got caught in tense bilateral relations. The Waldorf Astoria deal is one of the many foreign commercial real estate purchases of mainland Chinese investors. What are their motivations?
A (Big) Fish Called Wanda: Wang Jianlin’s Business Empire
Wang Jianlin’s sprawling business conglomerate, the Dalian Wanda Group, has its fingers in many pies: from real estate and retail to sports and entertainment.
Easing monetary policy won’t save China’s industrial economy
A new CKGSB survey shows that with excessive capacity and rising costs, easing monetary policy won’t save China’s industrial economy.
Chinese Outbound Investment in Real Estate: Brick by Brick
Anbang Insurance’s purchase of New York’s iconic Waldorf Astoria Hotel stunned many, but it’s only the tip of the Chinese outbound investment iceberg. In the first of our series on Chinese outbound investment, we take a look at the biggest real estate purchases made by Chinese companies.
Air Pollution in China: What’s at Stake?
How serious is air pollution in China and how is the country addressing it at a policy level? Also, what kind of business opportunities is this creating? A comprehensive look. If you live in China, chances are the one thing you’d be most concerned about is the level of PM2.5 in the air. PM2.5, or particulate matter […]
Aging Population in China: Having a Senior Moment
The aging population in China needs a housing solution. So what’s stopping the industry from booming? Since the beginning of 2014, Jim Biggs has been living in a brand-new residential facility for senior citizens with dementia. He’s just 54 years old, and has no problem with his memory. Biggs, the managing director of Honghui Senior […]
Real Estate in China: If You Build It, Will they Come?
Real estate in China has gone into a downward spiral and the slowing property market is casting a shadow over developers. On a spring afternoon in Beijing, Zhou Fang is busy hawking apartments in a new residential complex along the city’s third-ring road. He doesn’t appear to be having much luck. The buildings opened a couple months […]
China Roundup: China’s Slowing Economy; Tencent’s Profits Up; and Facebook’s China Office
The week that was: China’s slowing economy; Tencent profit rises on growth in online games; Alibaba battles fakes; and Facebook will finally dip its toes in Chinese waters with a Beijing office (but won’t scale the Great Fire Wall). A slower Chinese economy? Get used to it Last week’s surprisingly solid trade numbers (exports and […]
Download the June 2013 issue of CKGSB Magazine: Future of Freemium
You are invited to download the June issue of CKGSB Magazine. You’ll enjoy articles and interviews like: COVER STORY: The Future of Freemium: In light of the recent debate over whether WeChat should start charging its users, CKGSB Magazine takes a close look at the freemium model in which a company provides the bulk of its services […]
Charting a New Course
Vantone chairman Feng Lun on pioneering a new business model for China’s real estate industry With China’s real estate market in cool-off mode after over a year of policy-driven credit restrictions, it’s perhaps not surprising that one of the country’s most high-profile developers has been looking at new territories and new business models. Vantone, a […]
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