Mugabe villa in Hong Kong sold at a loss of US$800 000

A villa in Hong Kong which was used by former First Lady Grace Mugabe and her daughter Bona while she was going to university there has been sold at a loss of HK$6 million ( about US$800 000), the South China Morning Post reports.

The villa was bought for HK$40 million (about US$5.1 million) in 2008 and was sold recently for HK$34 million (about US$4.3 million).

The agent who sold the villa to an unidentified buyer said it was rare to sell property for a loss in that area.

The villa was subject of an ownership dispute with the Zimbabwean government at one time claiming ownership.

The paper said the villa was bought in 2008 by a company called Cross Global, and sold two years later at cost to its sole shareholder Hsieh Ping Sung, a Taiwan-born South African businessman and one-time Mugabe confidant.

Mugabe’s government sued Cross Global and Hsieh in 2014 claiming ownership of the villa saying that the businessman had merely been holding it on trust.

It is not clear whether the ownership wrangle had been resolved or not and if so how.

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