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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... -of-the-dragon.html
China’s new rich are on a shopping spree in Britain. Neil Tweedie explains what they’re snapping up .
By Neil Tweedie
Published: 9:56PM BST 25 Jul 2010
Far East to West End: China‘s big spenders have few qualms about flaunting their wealth, and have taken over from the Russians and the Arabs in the high-end bling market
It doesn’t do nowadays to be an estate agent in the more fashionable parts of London with no working knowledge of feng shui. Understanding that the number four is unlucky in Chinese folklore and that a staircase sited directly behind the front door is similarly inauspicious – it means luck and prosperity will flow straight out of the house – can be the difference between closing or losing a sale.
“We had agreed the sale of a lovely house to a Chinese couple who were prepared to pay just over £4 million,” says Andy Buchanan, director of estate agents John D Wood & Co, Chelsea. “They sent the plans off to a feng shui master back home, who had advised their family on all previous purchases. The master, who was blind, was given the brochure and floorplans to handle and urged the couple not to buy the house. To our surprise, they pulled out of the deal without a moment’s hesitation.
“Chinese buyers won’t even agree to view a property which has the digit four in the address, is on the fourth floor, or has four bedrooms. This superstition runs so deep that sometimes one hesitates to send the brochure to the buying agent if the property has any connections with the number four.”
The need for feng shui-friendly estate agents is the latest symptom of China’s worldwide spending spree, the effects of which are now being felt in Britain. Be it prime property in London, copper mines in Peru and Zambia or dairy farms in New Zealand, the Chinese want it. As Western economies stagnate or contract, that of China continues to grow its way to global pre-eminence at a rate of about nine per cent per year.
Nowhere is China’s confidence seen more clearly than in its demand for luxury goods. Last year the People’s Republic overtook the United States to become the second biggest market for the luxury sector; and by 2015 it will have overtaken Japan, with a market projected to be worth £11 billion annually.
Beijing’s decision to let the yuan appreciate against Western currencies, together with purchase tax rates of 20 per cent or so on luxuries bought in China, has made the shopping expedition to London or Paris a practical proposition for the country’s expanding bourgeoisie. Stroll along Bond Street and there you will find them: mainland China’s new rich, successors to the Russians and Arabs in the market for high-end bling.
“Middle-class and affluent Chinese consumers have become the number one foreign buyers on London’s high streets, enjoying greater disposable income, a strong yuan and a weak pound,” says Ken Grant, managing director of FDKG, a consultancy specialising in advice on the Far Eastern luxury market. “Chinese high-net-worth consumers want to show they have money, and items like jewellery are a powerful means of doing so. Watches are a very popular gift in China, the most popular indicator of wealth for men, who still hold the purse strings.”
A study by FDKG found that Chinese consumers now out-spend Russians in Mayfair shops.
Most mainland Chinese money is new money, and new money is rarely subtle. Well-known luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Rolex and Burberry predominate on shopping lists, the items bought often intended as gifts for relations, friends and business associates, not to mention mistresses. Three quarters of luxury watches bought by the Chinese are presents, helping to maintain guanxi (one’s network of friends and contacts).
The number of shoppers visiting Britain from China can only grow. The country’s middle class is expected to reach 315 million by 2015, greater than
the population of the United States. There are now 875,000 dollar millionaires in the communist paradise, sporting an average age of just 39. They own an average of three cars and 4.4 luxury watches, and suffer no qualms about flaunting their wealth.
The mainland Chinese influence is now being felt in the London property market. Earlier this year the Hong Kong-based billionaire Joseph Lau bought a house in Belgravia’s Eaton Square for £33 million. Mr Lau enjoys the finer things in life, owning some 10,000 bottles of wine and an Andy Warhol portrait of Chairman Mao bought for £12 million. Far Eastern investors like him see London as a safe place to park money and, always with an eye to a bargain, are currently responsible for a fifth of new-build purchases in the city centre.
“2009 was the year of the Italians but this year the Asian buyers have pushed them out,” says Mr Buchanan. “It may well be currency that is playing a large part in the shift.”
Chinese buyers often prefer properties near well-known landmarks or the Thames. The reason sometimes lies in a certain naivety. Mainland Chinese regard Britain through the lens of stereotypes, and tend to prefer purchases that conform to them.
“I was once asked by a wealthy Chinese contact to advise him on buying a castle,” says Mr Grant. “It didn’t matter where – England to him was full of castles and that was where one lived. I had to explain that castles cost an awful lot to run, which was why most people didn’t live in them.
“The UK, to mainland Chinese, really means London – there isn’t much concept of the rest of the country. But they like Britishness and we sometimes miss a trick in not promoting a traditional view of the UK in China in the way that the Italians, say, do for their country.”
The eccentricity of Chinese buying habits takes other forms. Fine wine may be a status symbol in the high-end restaurants of Shanghai but many locals are not so enamoured of the actual taste.
“The Chinese used to water down the cheap wine they first encountered and now consider that the normal way to drink it,” says Mr Grant. “Which can be a bit of a shame when you’ve just opened a nice Margaux.”
That will change, of course, as the elite of the world’s new hyperpower get used to the trappings of wealth. In the meantime, the British would be well advised to play up to those stereotypes.
“We were selling a charming mews house for an elderly lady who had lived there for decades, and the house hadn’t been modernised at all,” says Mr Buchanan. “A Chinese mainland buyer looked round it and immediately offered a price which was considerably above the guide price, on the condition that the owner would leave all her trinkets, pictures, rugs, furniture and doilies and teaspoon collection, when she moved out.
“His translator explained that he wanted 'authentic quintessential England’, and was willing to pay over the odds to get the complete package. He was disappointed when we explained that the contents would not be included in the sale as they were the owner’s personal treasures. He still paid over the guide, though.” |
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狗仔卡
发表于 2010-7-26 13:22
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发表于 2010-8-5 14:00