Zheng Zhigang led the team, and Hong Kong fought hard

Zheng Zhigang came.

Adrian Cheng, Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong New World Group, announced on social media platforms: "I am honoured to be appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hong Kong Wealth Inheritance Academy. The investment community has been informed that the appointment is effective from November 14, 2023.

The VC circle is no stranger to Adrian Cheng. Born in 1979, Adrian Cheng was born in 1979 and attended Harvard University at the age of 17 before joining the family business at the age of 28. In addition to the well-known K11 shopping mall, C Capital, which he helms, recently announced the successful completion of the third round of private equity fund raising, leaving a deep impression on the industry.

The Hong Kong Wealth Inheritance Academy, which will be led by Adrian Cheng, is a platform commissioned by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to establish the FSDC as a leading international family office hub. There is a background here, this year Hong Kong has extended an olive branch to the world, setting off a wave of family offices to set up in Hong Kong.

Zheng Zhigang led the team

A new organization has just been established in Hong Kong

Let's start with Adrian Cheng's latest appointment.

On 9 November, the official website of the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) announced the establishment of the Hong Kong Wealth Inheritance Academy, which mainly provides talent training services for industry practitioners and wealth inheritors, and expands the talent pool for the family office industry in Hong Kong.

In the primary market, family offices ("family offices") are no strangers, as institutions that manage and allocate assets for wealthy families and individuals, family offices have always been the LPs of many investment institutions. In the past year, the Hong Kong government has launched a number of initiatives to attract family offices to Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Wealth Inheritance Institute is one of them.

According to the FSDC, the Hong Kong Wealth Inheritance Academy will provide global support, such as collaboration, knowledge sharing and talent training, with a view to building a thriving ecosystem for international family office managers, the next generation of asset owners and wealth management practitioners, and enhancing Hong Kong's international status as a family office hub.

In addition, the College was established in the form of a company limited by guarantee. To put it simply, members of a company limited by guarantee do not need to provide business or working capital to the company, and the funds are raised separately by the company. This form is also mostly used for non-profit purposes such as culture, education, charity, etc., and is usually an organizational form of a club or other community organization.

Regarding the appointment of members, Adrian Cheng was appointed as the Chairman of the Board, and the other members of the Board include Au King-lun, Kam Lok-kei, Lam Chun-ming, Lo Choi-wan, Wong Wing-kwong, Chan Ho-lim (Hong Kong Financial Services and Treasury Bureau) and Ng Kwok-choi (InvestHK), who are from various platform institutions such as family offices, academic, professional services and public sectors.

Among them, the one who has attracted the most attention is Zheng Zhigang. On the same day, Adrian Cheng made an official announcement on social media, "I will work closely with the HKSAR Government, members of different professional fields of the College, and industry professionals to jointly contribute to the strategic planning and development of the College, hoping to contribute to the long-term development of Hong Kong's economy." ”

As the eldest son of the second-generation successor of New World, Cheng Kar-Shun, joined the Board of Directors of New World at the age of 28 and officially took over as Chairman of the Board of Directors of his father in 2021, and is now regarded as the third generation successor of New World Group.

The VC circle is most familiar with C Capital, which he single-handedly founded. In 2017, Zheng Zhigang and Zheng Yanbin jointly established C Capital. At that time, Adrian Cheng said that this is an investment club for global families, committed to connecting China and the West, and creating a global ecosystem for millennials and Gen Z groups, focusing on technology, life consumption, and media.

Now, 6 years later, C Capital has invested in a map: as of the latest financing valuation on August 31, 2023, about 35% of the companies in the portfolio have reached unicorn status, including Casetify, Xpeng Motors, NIO, SenseTime, SHEIN, Siling Robotics, Cargo Lala, etc. In September this year, C Capital announced the successful completion of the third round of private equity fund raising, with a total investment of more than US$250 million in its main funds and related co-investment vehicles, making it the company's largest private equity fund to date.

In Hong Kong's financial circles, giants like New World are often regarded as old money, but Adrian Cheng does not rely strongly on his traditional industries, but continues to expand the wealth sector through capital operations. "On the surface, they are relatively scattered in the public market, and even set up several different family offices to do different things, and they are more active in private equity investment." An industry insider in Hong Kong revealed to the investment community.

As the third-generation heir of the Cheng family in Hong Kong, Adrian Cheng's appointment as the chairman of the board of directors of the Hong Kong Wealth Inheritance Institute has attracted much attention. Hong Kong has a long history of business, and many established enterprises have reached the second and third generation inheritance stage, "Inheritance is the most important thing for mature family businesses. ”

A scene in Hong Kong:

The global scramble for family offices

The Hong Kong Wealth Inheritance Academy brings a hidden group to the public eye family office.

Recently, Hong Kong's family offices have been particularly lively. A friend from a VC institution in Shenzhen is on the front line of fundraising, and she observed that more and more family businesses and high-net-worth individuals have set up family offices in Hong Kong this year, "Compared with Singapore, Hong Kong's family offices are more active this year. ”

Lin Hao also deeply sympathizes with this phenomenon. He is currently working for a single family office in Hong Kong, and in his observation, since the second half of 2022, there has been a clear return of family offices in Hong Kong, and some family offices that have moved to Singapore have returned to Hong Kong this year. In addition, quite a number of Mainland entrepreneurs have come to Hong Kong to set up family offices.

Lin Hao revealed that on June 18 this year, a mainland company opened a family office in Hong Kong, and the opening ceremony was held on the same day.

"Many family businesses set up family offices in Hong Kong, and the main consideration is to make a global allocation of funds." Lin Hao said that Hong Kong has a complete financial system and environment, and has always been a bridge linking the mainland and overseas capital markets.

Most crucially, the Hong Kong government is sparing no effort to promote family offices to come to Hong Kong. Just like the establishment of the Hong Kong Wealth Inheritance Academy, it comes from the "Policy Statement on the Development of Family Office Business in Hong Kong" issued by the Hong Kong government in March this year.

To attract global family offices to Hong Kong, the policy statement also includes eight measures, including the well-known Capital Investment Entrant Scheme, tax concessions, market facilitation measures, the promotion of art storage facilities at the airport, the development of Hong Kong into a charity centre, InvestHK's dedicated team of FamilyOfficeHK and a new network of family office service providers.

"Among a series of policies, the tax exemption of family office income is the most attractive." Lin Hao said bluntly. In May this year, the Hong Kong SAR Government announced the introduction of a preferential tax regime for family offices, under which investment profits will be exempt from tax in Hong Kong if certain conditions are met, in order to attract asset owners from all over the world to set up family offices in Hong Kong. Since then, Hong Kong has set off a wave of family office establishment.

This time, Hong Kong's goal is quite clear: it plans to attract no less than 200 family offices to set up or expand their business in Hong Kong by the end of 2025. In a set of data released in June this year, InvestHK has received enquiries from nearly 100 family offices around the world, of which one-third have indicated their intention to set up an office in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is very hard

Grab people with one hand, and grab industry with the other

All this makes Hong Kong's urgency palpable. This year, Hong Kong has introduced a series of large-scale regulations, which can be summed up in two points: one is to grab people, and the other is to grab industries.

First, the wealthy group. Not long ago, Hong Kong's "Capital Investment Entrant Scheme" was officially launched. According to the requirements, the applicant will put a certain amount of assets excluding property investment in the local market in Hong Kong, and then come to Hong Kong to live and develop after passing the approval. The Policy Address clarified that this amount, i.e., an investment of not less than $30 million (excluding real estate), can apply to enter Hong Kong, which is regarded by the outside world as targeting the wealthy group.

There are also highly educated talents. At the same time, the official website of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government announced that the "Top Talent Pass Scheme" (referred to as "TTPS") has added three mainland college graduates to the group, Wuhan University, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Harbin Institute of Technology. Prior to this, Hong Kong had opened up its "settlement" to graduates of nine mainland universities: Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, University of Science and Technology of China, CUHK, Nanjing University and Huake University.

Grabbing people is only the first step. This was followed by the beginning of the era of "investment attraction" in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Investment Corporation Limited (HKIC), known as the "Temasek" of Hong Kong, took on this important task.

At the outset, Hong Kong Investment Corporation Limited was given the significant mission of managing the HK$22 billion Hong Kong Growth Portfolio, the HK$5 billion Greater Bay Area Investment Fund, the HK$5 billion Strategic Innovation and Technology Fund, and the HK$30 billion Co-Investment Fund under the Future Fund, with a fund management scale of HK$62 billion.

Among them, the "co-investment fund" is a fund established by Hong Kong with a reference to the mainland's guidance fund model and a fund set aside 30 billion yuan from the "Future Fund" to introduce and invest in enterprises settled in Hong Kong. The newly established Co-Investment Fund (CIF) will drive the development potential of local industries on a case-by-case basis.

In the face of the rising sense of crisis, Hong Kong has set a target of introducing about 1,100 enterprises as a whole, including leading enterprises and science and technology enterprises.

After half a year of hard work, there has been a gradual improvement, and among the latest mainland enterprises that have settled in Hong Kong or are actively implementing their plans to come to Hong Kong, there are many familiar Biqian Technology, Yuanhua Intelligence, Horizon Robotics, Duodian, etc., and three of them plan to set up their international headquarters and overseas R&D centers in Hong Kong.

The latest scene is that on November 7, the well-known unicorn Black Sesame Intelligence signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, and the two parties will work together to promote the implementation of the Hong Kong Technology Innovation and R&D Center of Black Sesame Intelligence in the Science and Technology Park, and promote the park to build a vehicle-grade high-performance intelligent vehicle computing chip platform.

So far, Hong Kong has vigorously fought to attract investment.

Looking at it, this may be the most vivid portrayal of the current tide of investment promotion across the country.

(Lin Hao is a pseudonym in the article)