Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (3141)	5/4/2004 1:49:17 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

China's young guns tap property boom 05.05.2004 By DOMINIC WHITING SHANGHAI - China's property industry is barely a decade old and its movers and shakers are not a great deal older. But the "30-something" tycoons are quickly earning the trust of foreign investors eager for exposure to an explosive property boom, because of their enthusiasm and business nous. At 34, Fan Wei is a rising star in the first generation of private property developers in half a century. In the past six months, he has struck deals for apartment projects with Morgan Stanley and ING's real estate arm. Fan says his company, Shanghai Forte Land, was in the right place at the right time. "The timing was very important and we were lucky to be in the fastest period of growth in China, which provided opportunities for everyone," Fan said. Shanghai Forte rose from obscurity in 1992 to a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in February that raised US$221 million ($358 million). An engineering graduate in 1991, Fan worked for a year as a chemicals salesman before a university friend, Guo Guangchang, lured him back to Shanghai to start an agency to match landlords and tenants. When the Government realised struggling state firms could no longer afford to house their workers, it gave the green light to private developers in the early 1990s and mortgages in 1997. Shanghai Forte stepped up. It has built 10,000 flats in the past decade, tapping frantic demand from a growing middle class clamouring to leave Shanghai's quaint but crumbling brick terrace houses, often with no direct water supply or sewage system. "The company we started was a property agency but in one year we had our first development project - just 500 low-end units," Fan said. In the past three years, net profit at Shanghai Forte rocketed 15-fold. Guo, 36, now owns about 60 per cent of Shanghai Forte's parent firm, Fosun High Technology Group nzherald.co.nz