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China Oceanwide CEO steps down, CFO takes helm

Switch comes a week after Chinese developer announces capital shortfall for flagship LA project

Oceanwide's new CEO Liu Guosheng and former CEO Han Xiaosheng with Oceanwide Plaza (Oceanwide)
Oceanwide's new CEO Liu Guosheng and former CEO Han Xiaosheng with Oceanwide Plaza (Oceanwide)

The CEO of Oceanwide Holdings’ parent company in China has stepped down, just as the company aims to finish its flagship project in Los Angeles by next year.

Han Xiaosheng stepped down as CEO on Sept. 6, according to a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Oceanwide’s former CFO, Liu Guosheng, has assumed both chairman and CEO positions, the filing said.

Han had served as CEO of parent company China Oceanwide since August 2020, when the company started looking to sell its U.S. assets. He signed a three-year service contract with Oceanwide with an annual salary of about $290,000, previous filings show, and was subject to re-election as CEO.

Liu, who has served as CFO since last year, has also signed a three-year contract, but his annual salary has not yet been decided, according to the Tuesday disclosure.

The announcement comes less than a week after the developer said it hoped to resume construction on its unfinished, 2 million-square-foot Oceanwide Plaza project in Downtown L.A. by the end of next year — if it can obtain funding.

Oceanwide has already spent almost $1.2 billion on the project and estimates it would need another two years and about $1 billion to finish construction.

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In the first half of the year, Oceanwide spoke with nine separate investors and financial institutions about new financing, the firm said in a release last week, though no financing has been secured. Sources previously told TRD that U.S. developers such as Brookfield Asset Management and CIM Group have looked to buy the site, but couldn’t pencil it out because of rising construction costs.

Whether the company will be able to obtain financing to finish the project also depends on interest rates, Oceanwide said last week.

Oceanwide has already lost control of its unfinished development in San Francisco and an undeveloped site in New York, after it defaulted on loans connected to the projects.

The firm will continue to look for joint venture partners or sale opportunities across its entire portfolio, both abroad and in the U.S., “in response to the shortage of funds and the difficulties of financing.

“With the belief that ‘where there is a will, there is a way,’ the group will not give in, even if there are numerous difficulties ahead,” Han wrote in the filing last week, before his departure.

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