Hsin Chong was a Hong Kong builder for 80 years — mainland property bets killed it

Hsin Chong Construction was founded in 1939 and grew into one of Hong Kong's largest builders. It was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1991. In the late 1990s, the company was involved in a short-piling scandal and was banned from government contracts from 1999 to 2002. It recovered and continued as a major contractor for decades.

Control passed from the founding Yeh family to Chinese billionaire Lin Zhuo Yan, who diversified the company into mainland China property development. In September 2016, Anonymous Analytics reported that Lin used Hsin Chong as a "personal dumping ground" for loss-making development properties, acquiring them at inflated prices. In 2016, the company recorded a loss of HK$2.7 billion, largely due to a HK$4.4 billion loss on mainland property investments.

By early 2017, Hsin Chong owed HK$500 million to subcontractors in Hong Kong, causing project delays. Its shares were suspended from trading in April 2017. The HK$5.9 billion contract with the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority for the M+ Museum was terminated in August 2018 over insolvency and poor performance. The company was defunct by January 2020.