Oct. 31 (NBD) -- Chinese commercial property developer Soho China Limited (00410, HK) announced on early Thursday that the company is not aware of any information relating to the sale of its assets which would require to be announced, after the media report said on Wednesday that Soho China was considering to sell its office towers for 8 billion U.S. dollars.

Fueled by the hearsay, stock of Soho China soared by 17.9 percent yesterday, closing at 2.7 Hong Kong dollars (34 cents) per share. The share price edged down by 0.74 percent today.

Pan Shiyi (Photo/VCG)

National Business Daily (NBD) noticed that Soho China had offloaded its real-estate assets for at least three times during the past six months. 

This October, the company was reported to have sold 11 commercial properties of Soho 3Q, a co-working space business that Soho China's founder Pan Shiyi once placed high hopes on. Pan even promised three months ago that the business was expected to be spun off and go public this year. Soho China at the time didn't respond to the report.

Soho China announced it sold 9 commercial projects for 761 million yuan (107.9 million U.S. dollars) this September and another 13 for 7.8 billion yuan in June this year. 

According to Pan, the transactions were made due to the fact that Soho China held too many property assets rather than financial reasons.

Incomplete statistics showcased that since 2012, the company has sold commercial properties worth nearly 30 billion yuan in total.

NBD found that amid Soho China's frequent transactions, Pan revealed in June this year that the firm was planning on purchasing land in the most bustling districts of some first-tier cities, but also stated that the company would repay the loans of 17.8 billion yuan if there's no satisfactory land available.

However, recent financial reports of Soho China told a different story. The real estate developer in the first half of 2019 booked 889 million yuan in revenue, representing a year-over-year growth of 11.8 percent but grossed net profits of 565 million yuan, down by 48.36 percent from the year-ago period. 

According to data compiled by financial information services provider Wind, revenue of Soho China once hit 14.9 billion yuan in 2013 but plummeted to a mere 6.36 billion yuan in 2014 and dipped further to 1.4 billion yuan in 2015. Since then, the metrics has been hovering low at 2 billion yuan between 2016 and 2018. 

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn