There is plenty of vitriol aimed at property tycoons in Hong Kong, where the world’s most expensive house prices have resulted in abysmal living conditions for many poor families and where developers are thought to wield unhealthy influence over government.
But the public perception of Raymond and Thomas Kwok – the brothers who run Sun Hung Kai Properties, Asia’s largest property company by market value – is relatively benign.
Aged 59 and 60 respectively, the men who oversee a property empire with US$8bn of sales a year are also evangelical Christians and extremely devoted to their mother. Thomas Kwok’s idea for a theme park based on a replica of Noah’s Ark – which opened in 2009 to promote “positive values” – solidified the brothers’ image of prudish eccentricity.