At property owners’ grievance meeting, Ma Kiu-sang criticises banks for ‘not lending’; family sells final shops in Hung Hom building same day

On September 7, Ma Kiu-sang took the stage at a grievance meeting on the “chain effect of the retail property market slump”, criticising banks for having been “not very willing to provide mortgages for shop properties” in recent years. He also suggested that the government relax enforcement against unlicensed premises to facilitate the night-time economy. On the same day, a family company owned by him sold the last two ground-floor shops — Shops A and F, totalling about 530 square feet — at 32 Wuhu Street, Hung Hom, for HK$15.48 million. Together with Shops B to E on the ground floor and the residential units on the first to third floors sold last year, the entire tenement building has now been disposed of, generating total proceeds of about HK$71.2 million.

The Ma Ya-muk family bought the building for about HK$38 million in March 2005. After holding it for 21 years, the transaction represents a book profit of about HK$33.2 million, or an 87.4 per cent increase. The property is registered under Yan Yan Motor Company Limited, whose directors include Ma Kiu-man, Ma Kiu-mo and Ma Kiu-sang — the three brothers who took over the family business after Ma Ya-muk’s death. The shops are currently leased to a wholesale outlet and a fashion store, with combined monthly rent of about HK$71,000. Based on the sale price, the new buyer’s yield is about 5.5 per cent. Li Kan-hing, founder of Centaline Commercial, said the property was situated in a prime section near the market and close to Hong Kong Polytechnic University, while the upper-floor units could be converted into student accommodation.

The grievance meeting was organised by the civic group 107 Power against the backdrop of shop prices falling more than 40 per cent from their 2018 peak and the vacancy rate reaching 12.5 per cent at one point, a 40-year high. Centaline founder Shing Ho-yung said at the meeting that the old belief that “one shop could support a person through retirement” had collapsed. While residential mortgage rates remained at 2 to 3 per cent, commercial property mortgage rates had reached 5 per cent or even more than 10 per cent, making bank refusals to approve mortgages for shop properties common. Ma Kiu-sang was also among the speakers, revealing that the family had so far sold properties worth about HK$800 million to HK$1 billion this year.

But when Ma Kiu-sang’s disclosure is viewed alongside the family’s sales record over the past year or so, a very different picture emerges. In April, the family sold a large shop in Sheung Shui for about HK$90 million after holding it for 14 years. It made only a book profit of HK$2.6 million, representing a gain of 3 per cent. That same month, a large shop on Shau Kei Wan’s Tung Tai Street was sold for HK$119 million, representing a 70 per cent gain after an 18-year holding period — already lower than the 87 per cent return on the Wuhu Street property. The situation at The Center is even more pronounced. In 2017, the Ma Ya-muk family, together with Chan Ping-chi, Choi Chi-chung, Lo Man-tuen and others, bought a 75 per cent stake in the building from Cheung Kong for HK$40.2 billion. Ma Ya-muk was reported to have personally contributed more than HK$11 billion. The family began selling off individual floors from 2023, with one transaction recording a loss of about 38 per cent per square foot compared with the purchase price. In December last year, reports said a bankruptcy petition had been filed against Ma Ya-muk’s estate, citing issues related to the insolvency of the property at The Center — just over a year after his death in March 2024.

In other words, the 87 per cent gain on the Wuhu Street property is the family’s best-performing sale in its recent disposal record. The trajectory has moved steadily downwards: from an 87 per cent return after 21 years, to a 3 per cent gain after 14 years, then to selling at a loss and finally a bankruptcy claim against the estate. Ma Kiu-sang was speaking about the plight of the sector at the meeting, but the family’s transaction records told the story of his own family’s circumstances — and the two happened to converge on the same day.

Kwun Wing Motors and the Ma Ya-muk family have so far made no public response to the specific details of the bankruptcy petition involving The Center. The family has also not explained the pattern of successive property sales and diminishing returns.