HONG KONG: Hong Kong police raided the headquarters of Henderson Land Development Co and seized documents as part of an investigation into the property group’s aborted sales of luxury apartments, police said.
“As a result of the execution of the search warrants, we have seized a quantity of documents, which will be investigated and looked into further,” Tang King-shing, police commissioner, told reporters yesterday.
“Today, we also invited a number of people back to the commercial crime bureau to assist in our investigations. At this moment, the police have arrested no persons concerning this case,” he said.
Henderson Land said it was cooperating with the authorities. “Our company has provided relevant documents and appointed staff to help in the investigation,” the developer said in an emailed statement in Chinese.
“We welcome the police’s investigations and will do everything to provide the necessary material,” it said. “We hope the case will be resolved soon.”
Analysts said they expected the Hong Kong developer’s shares, which had lagged peers, to come under pressure in the days ahead. Its stock reversed gains yesterday to end flat, underperforming the Hang Seng Index’s 0.64% gain.
In June, the Hong Kong government said it was looking into the cancelled sale of 20 multi-million-dollar flats developed by Henderson in Hong Kong, while over recent few weeks legislators had questioned the developer’s practices.
Henderson Land announced last month that it would record a loss of HK$734 million (RM301.8 million) from the cancelled sales of the luxury flats on Conduit Road in Hong Kong, which would be reflected in its first-half results.
The cancellations included a duplex unit that had fetched a global record price of HK$71,280 per square foot last October. — Reuters
This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, July 15, 2010.
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