A group of wealthy Far Eastern investors are planning a major spending spree in Birmingham – and have huge regeneration schemes in their sights.

A consortium headed up by Denise Li, president at GlobalChina Wealth Management Company, plans to filter capital from the super-rich of China and Taiwan into property, infrastructure and energy schemes in the UK.

Speaking to the Post on a visit to Birmingham, Ms Li said the city was its principal focus, rather than London, which she said was “saturated”.

While Ms Li did not reveal potential investments, the group’s spending power would stretch to huge schemes like the Birmingham Smithfield development at the Wholesale Markets, regeneration around Curzon Street Station and the Icknield Port Loop residential quarter.

A group, which included one of Taiwan’s richest men, met Birmingham City Council’s deputy leader Ian Ward last week to discuss investment opportunities.

Ms Li, a former Miss Taiwan, said she wanted to use Birmingham as an exemplar to show how Far Eastern investment can help cities in the west to achieve growth ambitions.

She said: “We consider Birmingham to be the best city for this.

“It is developing. Everyone knows about London – it is a great city but it is saturated and hasn’t got much room to grow.

“We want to be building something new.

“We believe there is a very bright and interesting project here and it could change the relationship that Birmingham has with the Chinese.

“We want to offer job opportunities and help improve the lifestyle of British people and provide a demonstration of how to invest in a city for the 21st century.

“There is money ready and waiting for us to do this.”

Ms Li has established an equity company to invest in the UK, aided by Birmingham property developer Anthony McCourt and James Ng, a consultant at Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co in the city.

From left: Birmingham businessmen James Ng and Anthony McCourt with Far Eastern investors Dr Ching-Chih Chen and Denise Li
From left: Birmingham businessmen James Ng and Anthony McCourt with Far Eastern investors Dr Ching-Chih Chen and Denise Li

It will filter money from high net-worth individuals in China and Taiwan, as well as banks and third-party funds, to schemes in the UK, largely focused in the Greater Birmingham region.

Ms Li said there was a large appetite among rich Chinese people to invest in projects abroad – with real estate top of their list.

She is also keen to foster stronger ties with Wenzhou, one of China’s richest cities which has a conurbation of nine million people.

Ms Li said the consortium planned large-scale investment in the medium term. The group expects to spend between £10 million and £50 million in 2015 and treble that the year after.

“We don’t want to be limited by numbers,” she said. “The amount will depend on the needs of the city.

“We already have some projects in mind but we are looking to build gradually.

“In the short-term, we would like to build things up and this year maybe £10 million, but long-term it could be several billions of British pounds – it depends on the requirement.

“Chinese people are now looking for foreign investment.

“In China, we say ‘you don’t put all your assets in the same category’. Putting money abroad helps to have safe investment.”

She added: “We are trying to build a solid bridge so that east meets west.

“Chinese people have a feeling in their hearts when it comes to land. In this way, the Chinese are very similar to the British and share the same values.

“But potentially we will be looking at infrastructure and power plants.”

A computer-generated image of plans for Icknield Port Loop
A computer-generated image of plans for Icknield Port Loop

There are more than 350 billionaires in China and a further 33 in Taiwan, and rising fast, as well as more than three million millionaires.

She said she was keen to use Birmingham to demonstrate how much could be achieved using this rising wealth.

Ms Li added: “We are not just coming here with a brain, we are coming here with a heart.

“We are a global ambassador and Birmingham is the right place for us.

“We want to build something that helps Chinese people to invest and helps Birmingham and the city government here.

“We see Birmingham as Boomingham – there is lots of construction going on. We have been speaking to Ian Ward about it and we have some tentative potential sites we would like to build.”

Billionaire Dr Ching-Chih Chen one of the richest men in Taiwan, joined Ms Li on the visit to Birmingham to identify investment sites.

Dr Chen, whose family is behind the giant Wan Hai Lines shipping dynasty, has a strong record in regeneration. In 1991, he invested heavily in developing 300 hectares of swamp land near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam – now hundreds of thousands of people live there.

He said, over the last 30 years, China has been developed because of the direct investment of foreign countries, and people were keen to spread their wealth.

Now, a lot of wealthy Chinese people look to invest between three and five per cent of their money outside the country.

He said: “China was taking a lot of direct investment and exported a lot.

“Now, they have got to the point where they want to reinvest money abroad so they can use up surplus capacity. They want to export technology like high-speed rail and nuclear power.”

He added: “Chinese people like real estate so, to introduce people to invest abroad, the first project has to be a real estate development with a reasonable return on investment.”

A computer-generated image showing an aerial view of Birmingham Curzon Street HS2 Station, from the Birmingham Curzon HS2 Masterplan

China has the largest foreign-exchange reserves in the world and Taiwan is fifth on the list – with three times the reserves of the UK

Dr Chen said Far Eastern investors were keen to spread their wealth away from US Treasury bonds.

Coun Ward (Lab Shard End) said it had been an interesting meeting which the council would be following up.

Mr McCourt said Birmingham had several sites which offered potential returns for wealthy Far Eastern investors and Dr Chen’s record showed the potential for the investment.

He said: “Denise, James and I have been working on creating something which can bring Chinese investment on a wholesale basis into the city and help capitalise on the exponential growth that Birmingham is experiencing. We have created something that we are very excited about in China. We are excited about opportunities that can be brought forward for large scale redevelopment of the city centre.

“We are talking about some very large regeneration sites.

“This will range from single sites through to the strategic major masterplan areas which your paper has reported on and which require huge investment.

“This man has already done things like that, and very successfully.”