by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
At first, capital controls cut off funding. Now the coronavirus gets in the way of the money-losing sale it could finally line up.
The twisted saga of Chinese money in US commercial real estate takes on another twist; this time the coronavirus is blamed.
Back in October, after months of rumors about funding problems, property developer Oceanwide, a division of Chinese conglomerate Oceanwide Holdings Co. Ltd., admitted that it had halted construction indefinitely on a 54-story 605-foot tower in San Francisco’s Transbay district. This is the shorter of two towers in the same project. Two years behind schedule and way over budget, it may no longer be commercially viable.