Meet the Hong Kong billionaires behind some of the world's glitziest hotels — and the generation who could inherit the empire

The Chengs' empire can be traced back to World War II, when their grandfather, Cheng Yu-tung, started working as an apprentice at a gold shop in Macau called Chow Tai Fook.

In 1943, he married the daughter of the shop's owner, and shortly after, he moved to Hong Kong to open the store's first branch. As the Asian financial hub's affluence accelerated after the war, so did Cheng's business, which specialized in 24-karat gold jewelry.

The jeweler invested his profits heavily in real estate during the 1970s, starting a company called New World Development. Now publicly listed, it owns department stores, hotels, and infrastructure across mainland China, Hong Kong, and the US.

Cheng died in 2016 at the age of 91, when he was worth about $14.6 billion. His elder son, Henry, took over the jewelry and real-estate empire.

With the 77-year-old Henry now signaling that he may be looking for a successor, his two eldest children, Adrian and Sonia, have entered the spotlight.

Each has been running a key pillar of the family's property business for more than a decade, so they're considered the de facto contenders for their father's position.

Both oversaw meaningful expansions in their primary fields — hotels for Sonia and commercial real estate for Adrian — and have worked to transform their properties into cultural icons for younger generations.

Sonia, 43, studied applied math at Harvard University before working as a real-estate banker for Morgan Stanley and in private equity for Warburg Pincus, according to a 2019 profile by CNBC.

In 2008, she joined her family's business at age 28, becoming CEO of Rosewood Hotel Group three years later when the Chengs purchased the properties from Rosewood Corp. and Maritz, Wolff & Co.

The luxury hotel brand owned 19 properties at the time, including the glamorous Carlyle hotel in Manhattan, which celebrities flock to when they visit for the Met Gala.

With Sonia at the helm, Rosewood has since expanded into a global powerhouse for luxury hotels, with 34 locations and another 24 on the way.

It's pushed hard into mainland China under the brand name New World Hotels, opening 16 more properties in cities such as Beijing, Sanya, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, for a total of 51 hotels and resorts.

Sonia has often said she grew up in the hotel industry since her father, Henry, started his career as general manager of a hotel.

She told the Singaporean outlet Channel News Asia that her philosophy had been to ditch stuffy hotel standards and attract younger travelers looking for tailor-made experiences.

"There's a sense of discovery and curiosity when we go to hotels, we don't want to go to a place that doesn't reflect the local culture," she said.

Rosewood's Hong Kong property ranked second on the World's 50 Best Hotels' 2023 list, with two other hotels in São Paulo and Paris earning spots as well.

Sonia is married to Paulo Pong Kin-yee, who also comes from one of Hong Kong's wealthiest families, the Pongs. He's the founder of Altaya Group, a wine wholesaler, and the boutique restaurant company Classified Group, which runs five locations.

Adrian, 44, was long presumed to succeed his father as head of the family's wealth.

The eldest of four siblings, he started his career as a banker at UBS and Goldman Sachs before diving into the family business in 2007.

A year later, Adrian launched K11, his brand of malls and office buildings in Hong Kong and China that came with a unique selling point — a focus on showcasing art and designer work.

Art has been core to his personal brand. A classical singer who trained on Broadway, he graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's in East Asian Studies.

He's perhaps best known for K11 Musea, a $2.6 billion mall on Hong Kong's Victoria Dockside that has some 40 art installations and hosted Asia's first-ever Cannes Film Festival Week in 2019.

Adrian himself maintains a long list of personal art ventures, such as organizing a Louis Vuitton menswear fashion show in November and paying to save an iconic 1,300-seat cinema that opened in 1952.

Seen for years as the heir apparent to the Cheng business empire, he's dominated the lion's share of headlines about the family.

Like his sister, he led aggressive expansions for New World Development, pouring billions into residential and commercial buildings in Hong Kong and Chinese urban hubs.

His vision is to bring K11 to nine Chinese cities in total, and he's now building a mall in Shenzhen that's estimated to cost $1.4 billion.

A prolific investor, he's put money into more than 60 companies through his fund, C Ventures, including Shein, electric-vehicle makers such as XPeng, and the COVID-19 detection tech startup Prenetics.

C Ventures declared assets of more than $700 million when it merged with a Swiss investment firm in July.

Adrian is married to Jennifer Yu, who runs Chow Tai Fook Education, a collection of K-12 schools and play facilities, and Arch Education, a tutoring company.

In November, Adrian and Sonia's father turned heads in a television interview when he made a cryptic remark about his successor.

"I'm still observing, but I think it's not so easy to identify such a person," Henry said, adding that if there was no one suitable, the Chengs could "hire from the outside."

Each family member could continue to helm their own sector of the business, Henry said.

That comment rattled what had for years been presumed by the business world as the plan for the Chengs — that Adrian would take over everything.

By then, the family's net worth had reached $26 billion, and Adrian was already CEO of New World Development, though his father still controlled the family's assets.

Bloomberg noted that Adrian's representatives had described him in 2020 as "the heir to New World Development and Chow Tai Fook Enterprises."

Henry raised further uncertainty in December about his family's succession when Adrian and Sonia's younger brother Brian was placed in a top role in the company's construction and infrastructure arm.

All three were poised to lead their own fiefdoms in the Cheng empire, with Henry's fourth child, Christopher, holding an executive directorship at the company.

Their cousin and the vice-chairman of Chow Tai Fook, Conroy, denied in a November earnings press conference that there was any family infighting.

But on Thursday, it became clear that the Chengs' traditional succession narrative had been thrown into disarray. Adrian announced that he would step down as CEO and become a non-executive director in the company.

He would focus instead on public services, he told reporters at a press conference.

The Chengs have had to weather an ailing property market in Hong Kong.

The city suffered a rout among investors and residents after recent years of political turmoil, coupled with a weaker economy after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and lower demand for property from mainland China's wealthy buyers.

Rising taxes and interest rates in the city have also slowed the market, hemming in New World Development after it gobbled up loans and new properties.

The company's stock has dropped about 82% in the past five years.

Adrian's resignation also comes as New World Development suffered a heavy blow under his leadership — its first annual loss in 20 years.

In late August, the company reported that it expected to post a loss of up to $2.6 billion for the 2023 financial year, which ended in June.

It was a sign of heavy pressure on the company, which is already considered one of Hong Kong's most indebted property developers.

The Financial Times reported shortly after the announcement, citing several unnamed sources familiar with the company, that New World Development staff were growing worried about how quickly the Chengs were expanding.

"Today we face one of the most challenging combinations seen in decades — from high interest rates to uncertain market conditions," Adrian said in a statement to the FT. "I believe this game of patience paired with consistency and dedication will eventually get us to our goals."

He's been attempting to shore up confidence in Hong Kong's status as a financial hub, having started an institute in November to promote the city to the wealthy.

"I'm very confident we will be No. 1 for family office wealth management in the future," he told Bloomberg in August.

As Adrian exited the company's executive leadership on Thursday, New World Development's chief operating officer, Ma Siu-Cheung, became CEO.

A representative for New World Development declined to comment for this story.

September 27, 2024: This story was updated to reflect Adrian Cheng's resignation as CEO.

Correction: September 24, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misspelled Cheng Yu-tung's name.