Canton Properties
London-listed Canton Property Investment, which develops malls in China, has said its executive chairman had disappeared and its shares had been suspended while the firm sought extra funding.
The Hong Kong-based company, incorporated in early 2007, said in a statement that the executive chairperson, Keng Wong had ‘recently been absent from the company and uncontactable.’
Wong’s secretary told Reuters she had not seen him since August, while executives at the company were unavailable for comment.
Canton Property is investing in projects in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, where property prices have dropped by as much as 30% in the last year after booming for years.
In March, the company said it had bought from Keng Wong and a business partner, Ye Zhuansong, a 100% stake in a mixed-use property project in Guangzhou for about $350 million.
The project, called Canton Finance Center and including shopping space, offices, serviced apartments and a hotel, would be worth about $1.2 billion when completed, the firm said at the time. But in its statement yesterday, Canton Property said it was seeking funding for the project.
Canton’s non-executive director David Brewer, who held the largely ceremonial post of the Lord Mayor of London in 2005 and 2006, resigned after a board meeting on Wednesday failed to agree on the appointment of an interim chairman.
Source: Reuters