The two former richest men "exited" real estate? Li Ka-shing’s withdrawal of capital is true, but Wang Jianlin is a false shot

Recently, two former richest men, Li Ka-shing and Wang Jianlin, have made big moves. The difference is that Li Ka-shing continues to divest from real estate, while Wang Jianlin frequently takes action to regain the lost ground.

There is a very famous saying called "Never make the last copper penny". This widely circulated saying comes from Li Ka-shing. So when did Li Ka-shing stop earning the "last copper penny" from mainland real estate? Judging from the trajectory of Li Ka-shing's divestment from real estate, he was not optimistic about mainland real estate six years ago, that is, in 2013. Since then, Li Ka-shing has continued to sell mainland real estate projects.

According to the time point, Li Ka-shing's most recent big move was in May. He sold a complex project called "Noble Domain", located in the Putuo District of the "Magic City". This "noble field" is valued at nearly 3 billion US dollars and about 20 billion yuan in RMB.

In 2006, Li Ka-shing bought it for 2.2 billion yuan; in 2019, Li Ka-shing sold it for nearly 10 times the price. In 13 years, he earned nearly 18 billion yuan. On average, this one project earned 1.4 billion yuan a year. Li Chaoren really knows how to do business.

Since 2017, we have seen news about Wang Jianlin that goes something like this: "Buy, sell, sell." It sold some Wanda Film shares for 7.8 billion yuan, sold Beijing Wanda Realm and other hotels to R&F Properties for 20 billion yuan, and sold 13 "Wanda Cultural Tourism" properties to Sun Hongbin in a package for 43.844 billion yuan.

In fact, these news belong to the past tense, and now Wanda has "returned as the king." Since October 2018, Wanda has embarked on a "recovering lost ground" model.

The advancement and retreat of the two richest men has caused many people to interpret real estate, including many who over-interpreted it. In fact, we should look at this matter with a rational thinking. The current real estate market will neither rise excessively nor fall excessively.

Li Ka-shing divested himself from real estate because he was no longer optimistic about the property market. Li Ka-shing has said on many occasions that houses should no longer be bought and speculated, as there will be fluctuations. But this does not mean that China's property market will shrink as sharply as Japan's property market did.

Most of the lost land recovered by Wang Jianlin are cultural, tourism and commercial real estate projects. Although they are also real estate, they are not "real estate" as traditionally understood. These are not enough to prove that the property market will have a "second spring".

What will happen to the real estate market in the future still depends on the overall environment. As industry expert Ouyang Jie said, "In the future, the real estate market will no longer be a locomotive, but a ballast stone. The real estate market will not rise or fall, and housing prices will not rise or fall sharply."