In the mid-1990s, when Percy Weatherall was CEO of Hongkong Land and Michael Smith was a junior property cadet at Jones Lang Wootton, Weatherall offered Smith a job. Smith turned him down as he was already committed to UBS in Sydney. Weatherall, Smith recalls, “wasn’t very happy. I don’t think he had many people say no to him.”
Three decades later, Smith sat in that same corner office, newly installed as the company’s CEO. At his welcome dinner, he tracked down Weatherall and reminded him of the episode. The former boss had forgotten it entirely.
Hongkong Land is one of Hong Kong’s most storied developers. Founded in 1889, it’s the largest commercial landlord in Hong Kong’s Central district, owner of 4.8 million square feet of prime office and retail property in the city’s commercial heart: Exchange Square, home to the stock exchange; Jardine House, with agovernment-protected harbor view; and the Landmark retail complex.
But now, Smith is trying to loosen the ties between Hong Kong and Hongkong Land—a big step for a company that, literally, is named after its home city.
“Hongkong Land has always been a proxy for Hong Kong’s office rents,” Smith tells Fortune in an extended interview at the company’s Central headquarters. “When we looked at historic office rental cycles and our share price, it was like 90% correlated. Everything else we did as a business didn’t matter to investors.”
