dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

The Chinese property billionaire eyeing Cromwell, the owner of sensitive Canberra assets

It was a rainy day in early autumn and everyone was glued to their screens as the extraordinary general meeting took place in the Melbourne offices of law firm Arnold Bloch Liebler.

All eyes were on a putsch to oust the chairman of Cromwell Property Group and replace him with famed corporate raider Gary Weiss, a representative of Cromwell's largest shareholder, ARA.

Everyone, it seems, except for perhaps the most important man in this corporate manoeuvre: Chinese billionaire Gordon Tang, who didn't attend the meeting and left his vote up to the Australian custodians of his family's shares.

Tang is a man of great achievement, vast wealth and a chequered business history. The former professional windsurfer born and raised in the city of Shantou in the coastal province of Guangdong has amassed extensive holdings in property companies in his native China; Singapore, the place he now calls home; and the United States, where his closest connections include members of the Bush political dynasty.

But it's in Australia where his property portfolio is only just now beginning to attract scrutiny. Tang's profile is low in this country, but he and his family are now at the centre of one of the fiercest tussles in corporate Australia. It is the hostile battle for control of an ostensibly boring but actually fascinating $2.1 billion real estate trust that is intensifying just as concerns about Chinese investment into Australia reach fever pitch.

The stoush has pitted legendary woolly-haired corporate raider Gary Weiss and $90 billion Singapore property giant ARA against the previously unheralded ASX-listed Cromwell. Weiss' involvement in the battle has captured much of the media focus. But Tang and his wife Celine's wealth and power easily outstrip everyone else involved.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/companies/the-chinese-property-billionaire-eyeing-cromwell-the-owner-of-sensitive-canberra-assets-20200604-p54zp8.html