In less than 3 years of holding hands, Luo Zhenyu and Hopson Development have come to an end.
On the afternoon of February 5, Hopson Development officially announced that Luo Zhenyu resigned as the company's co-president for personal reasons, and the proposed effective date is January 31. After his resignation, Mr. Law ceased to hold any position in the Group.
For this farewell, Luo Zhenyu's response was very "decent". He said in an interview with ** that at this stage, he has basically reached a better node, so he chose to leave at this node.
In the past, the two sides got together because of "like-mindedness", and they also pursued their dreams together, which is regrettable.
In July 2021, Lo "retired" from CapitaLand, and Zhu Jurong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hopson Development, personally threw an olive branch to him, hoping that he could come to Hopson Development to take charge of real estate investment and operation. At that time, Hopson Development was interested in spinning off its real estate investment business from the commercial sector, and needed a person with considerable experience in real estate investment and operation. Loh Zhenyu, a star professional manager with decades of experience at Temasek and CapitaLand, is undoubtedly the best candidate.
After entering Hopson, Luo Zhenyu also showed his strength: within 2 months, he set up a ** and asset management team of more than 30 people; In one year, the business group will be transformed into a relatively independent group in terms of legal structure; Hopson's assetization is also in the right direction.
Unfortunately, with the changing market, Hopson has to face trade-offs.
What should be promoted has been promoted, what needs to be done has been done, and what has to be changed has also changed, and in the end, it depends on whether the market can help move forward a little faster. In the face of **, Luo Zhenyu's words still revealed regret.
Real estate veteran".
Law's track record is both solid and impressive.
Despite more than 30 years of experience in real estate, before joining Hopson, Loh had worked for only three companies – the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Temasek Holdings and CapitaLand. Steadiness does not mean mediocrity, and in his career, he has led the company to break through the shackles and move forward successfully.
Loh was born in October 1966 and is a Singaporean citizen. He graduated from the National University of Singapore with a bachelor's degree in real estate management and later obtained a master's degree in business administration from Oklahoma Metropolitan University.
Prior to 1996, after graduating with a bachelor's degree, Loh worked for the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore.
1996 In 2001, he was an Associate Director of Temasek Holdings' Private Equity Investments and led the firm's private equity business in the Asia Pacific region.
In September 2001, Mr Lo joined CapitaLand. Since then, his name has been closely associated with the company for 20 years. Her experience at the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) and Temasek Holdings has also given her more opportunities at CapitaLand.
In August 2004, she was seconded to China and served as Managing Director of Ascott China, General Manager of CapitaLand China South China, Chief Investment Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Ascott is CapitaLand's serviced residence arm, and when Loh first took over, it had only eight properties in China. After 3 years, it expanded to 22 stores in 10 cities.
In September 2014, Mr Loh was appointed Chief Executive Officer of CapitaLand China. At the same time, he is fully responsible for CapitaLand's real estate finance in China, including Raffles City China** and CapitaLand China Development**.
Some voices believe that CapitaLand can become Singapore's largest investment enterprise in China, and Loh Zhenyu has played an important role in boosting it.
In 2018, following an unprecedented personnel change at CapitaLand, Mr Loh was promoted to the position of President, overseeing the Group's China business and group investments, as well as overseeing the Group's future office business.
However, at this time, Luo Zhenyu also seems to be facing some "troubles". In an interview in 2019, he mentioned that finding a good ** person is good for retirement. Two years later, Lo submitted a retirement resignation to CapitaLand.
However, this "retirement" is not so much a farewell to a career as a desire to make a breakthrough in a new field.
Coincidentally, at this time, Zhu Jurong was also interested in spinning off the real estate investment business from the commercial sector, and needed a person with rich experience in real estate investment and operation. Less than two months after leaving CapitaLand, Lo and Hopson hit it off. This time, he is the Co-President of Hopson Development Group and the President of Real Estate.
A story that came to an abrupt end.
At that time, Zhu Jurong was officially at the helm of Hopson Development for less than 2 years, and she had higher ambitions and expectations for this "** aircraft carrier" in the real estate industry.
According to **, citing Hopson employees, after Zhu Jurong took over as chairman of the board of directors, the group has repeatedly mentioned the need to speed up the turnover rate. Before Luo Zhenyu took office, Zhu Jurong disclosed a grand blueprint: in the next five years, it is planned to increase the commercial area under construction management to 20 million square meters.
At the same time, Zhu Jurong also set his sights on the capitalization of investment and real estate. She once mentioned that Hopson Development will do commercial real estate business in the future.
For a long time, "real estate development + capital operation" has been the core of CapitaLand's proud real estate business model. The industry generally believes that Hopson Development should improve the construction of a closed loop of investment and exit of "investment, financing, management and withdrawal", and Luo Zhenyu will be a good helper.
After entering Hopson, Luo Zhenyu did not slack off. In just over two months, Luo Zhenyu has set up a team of more than 30 people, "everyone has their own strengths, and it adds up to a very powerful and lethal team."
Luo Zhenyu's first task is to open up a new financial track for Hopson. Under this goal, Luo Zhenyu and his team are first and foremost to revitalize the existing industrial deployment and adjust the structure. He once said that in the course of development over the years, Hopson Development has accumulated a large number of assets such as hotels, office buildings, shopping malls, etc., and his job is to revitalize these assets and reinvest the funds into new development projects, so as to promote the development of the enterprise and form a virtuous cycle of assets and capital.
Under the active operation of Luo Zhenyu, within one year, the business group has been transformed into a relatively independent group from the legal structure.
As of the end of June 2023, Hopson Development has more than 100 commercial real estate projects in more than 10 mainstream cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu, with a project area of more than 5 million square meters, and has built popular IPs such as Hopson Place, Chaoji Hopson Place, Hopson Plaza, HOPX Home Stadium, and MOHO. Among them, the flagship brand Hopson Hui has become a phenomenal commercial landmark in the city, and the occupancy rate has remained at 99%.
In terms of assetization, Luo Zhenyu ushered in the policy opportunity of revitalizing domestic commercial real estate assets together with Hopson Development during his tenure.
Since March 2023, consumer infrastructure has been officially included in the pilot scope of infrastructure public REITs, and since the end of 2023, a number of projects have been approved for the commercial REITs application boom. It is worth noting that in order to successfully issue consumer REITs, many conditions need to be met, including 38% rate of return, independence of assets, etc.
However, Luo Zhenyu has not fully demonstrated his strength, and everything seems to have come to an abrupt end.
Although Luo Zhenyu once mentioned: "Several major shopping malls, such as Hopson Hui and Hopson Plaza, may be put in REITs. But so far, Hopson has not made any relevant moves.
After Luo Zhenyu left, it is still unknown how Hopson will develop its assets.
The "curse" has not been broken
Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, and the gathering and dispersion have created the normalcy of the rivers and lakes, as well as sadness.
From its listing in 1998 to 2020, Hopson Development has gone through a total of 5 CEOs: Xie Shidong, Chen Changying, Wu Jiesi, Xue Hu and Xi Ronggui. However, except for the first president Xie Shidong, the other four CEOs all left before their terms expired, and this position was vacant for six and a half years, which was also called the "curse" of Hopson's professional managers.
Now it seems that Luo Zhenyu has failed to break this "curse", and Hopson Development has become the shortest stop for this moderate professional manager.
Although the two sides did not respond more to this, looking at Hopson's operating data in recent years, we can also see some clues.
In 2020, when Zhu Jurong took over, Hopson's sales were 3583.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5368％。In 2021, Hopson achieved sales of 42.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2151, according to the sales target of 50 billion yuan, the completion rate was 85, a record high.
Entering 2022, changes have occurred abruptly. In 2022, the sales amount of Hopson Development will be about 3257.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of about 2298%；By 2023, the sales amount of Hopson Development will be about RMB 3258.3 billion yuan, basically the same as the same period last year.
Compared with the high period, Hopson's sales have shrunk by tens of billions of yuan.
At the same time, Hopson is also facing liquidity pressures.
According to the data, as of mid-2023, Hopson's total assets are 2,958HK$3.3 billion, with total liabilities of HK$1966HK$600 million, net assets of 991HK$7.2 billion, with an asset-liability ratio of 665%；Current liabilities 1174HK$9.5 billion, of which $300 is short-term debt due within one yearHK$200 million. There were 189 cash and cash equivalents on the booksHK$9.7 billion, with a cash to short-term debt ratio of 0.63。
In terms of cash flow, Hopson's fundraising cash flow continued to have a net outflow of -121 in 2021 and 2022, respectivelyHK$500 million and -340HK$7.8 billion, which is not optimistic.
Regarding the dissolution of the duo of Luo Zhenyu and Hopson, the industry is full of two voices. One believes that it was the business situation that affected Luo Zhenyu's plan, and finally made him "unhappy"; One believes that it is the trade-off of Hopson's exhibition in the current situation, and it is necessary to concentrate on selling the house to "save life". It is worth mentioning that there is another co-president Zhang Fan parallel to Luo Zhenyu, who is in charge of the residential development sector of Hopson Development.
Either way, it doesn't matter anymore.
I didn't think too much about work after that, maybe I just took a break and went to play my golf and spend time with my family. For the next plan, Luo Zhenyu said.