China Resources subsidiary acquires Hong Kong hotel for student housing project

A subsidiary of state-owned conglomerate China Resources (Holdings) has acquired a Hong Kong hotel and plans to convert it into student housing amid a wave of investments driven by rising demand after the city raised the cap on non-local students. CR Longdation signed an agreement to buy four-star hotel Hotel Cozi Oasis in Kwai Chung, a major industrial and residential area in the southwestern New Territories, for HK$953 million (US$122 million), said Colliers and Knight Frank, which advised on the transaction, in a press release on Sunday. It is the largest hotel transaction of the year. The firm, whose operations range from asset management to retail and hotel operation, plans to turn the property into student housing, providing about 900 beds. Hong Kong’s property market had seen several large-scale deals across different asset types, with hotels – especially those that could be converted into student housing – drawing the most attention, said Willis Mak, executive director and head of private clients at Greater China at Knight Frank. “This deal is the largest and most high-profile hotel transaction of the year.” The deal comes as the number of mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong has risen in recent years, amid growing geopolitical tension with the US and Hong Kong’s continuous efforts to become a global hub for post-secondary education. “This would bring benefits to our local students and help widen their international perspectives,” Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said in his policy address in 2023. Hong Kong raised the cap on non-local students at tertiary institutions to 40 per cent in 2023 and to 50 per cent last September. Official figures showed non-local students accounted for more than 27 per cent of student numbers in the 2025-26 academic year, up from around 23 per cent a year earlier, with about 72 per cent coming from the mainland. The change added pressure on accommodation supply, with the student-bed shortfall estimated at about 88,000. Mak said CR Longdation’s acquisition and redevelopment aligned with government policy directions, helping to address bottlenecks in Hong Kong’s higher education sector and further strengthening the city’s position as an education hub. It also reflected renewed confidence among enterprises and investors in Hong Kong’s capital market, with mainland enterprises becoming increasingly active. In late December, China Merchants Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust, managed by a subsidiary of state-owned conglomerate China Merchants Group, paid HK$206 million to acquire Austin Avenue Hotel and planned to turn it into a student hostel with 85 beds. In the same month, state-run Sino United Publishing acquired a hotel in Wan Chai for HK$205 million and planned to turn it into student housing. In February, China Overseas Land & Investment won a bid for a 3,132-square-metre (33,712 sq ft) residential plot in Kowloon East, beating some of the city’s largest developers with a higher-than-expected tender. It is the first developer from the mainland to win a site in the city since 2020. Knight Frank said it believed mainland enterprises would further drive the recovery of the local investment market, with more major transactions expected this year.