2nd November 2026 – (Hong Kong) Former New World Development chief executive Adrian Cheng marked his 47th birthday today by posting a rare Instagram photograph with his father, New World chairman Henry Cheng, a low-profile appearance that has drawn notice for the private family moment it publicly records.
Mr Henry Cheng, who turns 80 next month, usually keeps a quiet profile and is seldom seen outside annual meetings and major political or business events. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with his eldest son at a dining table in casual clothes, he smiled for the camera beside Adrian, who wore a black baseball cap. Two birthday cakes sat between them: a strawberry-topped chocolate cake with lit gold candles and a chocolate plaque reading “Happy Birthday To Adrian”, plus a distinctive red cartoon-character cake that rounded off the warm, informal scene.
The share is unusual because the elder Cheng rarely steps into the social-media frame for family occasions. For Adrian Cheng, once the public face of the Cheng family’s listed property and jewellery empire, the light-hearted post also arrives after a deliberate retreat from those boardrooms and a pivot toward ventures run under his own name.
In September 2024, he stepped down as New World’s executive vice-chairman and chief executive, moving first to a non-executive directorship. He also left posts at Chow Tai Fook Jewellery and NWS Holdings in stages. Henry Cheng said at the time that he respected and supported the decision, thanked his son for years of effort and voiced confidence that Adrian could still drive meaningful change beyond the group. Through 2025 Adrian left New World’s board altogether and, by late June that year, resigned as a director of the family’s flagship holding company Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, completing a broad exit from the core listed structure.
Having stepped clear of those roles, he founded conglomerate ALMAD Group in 2025 with the cultural-retail brand K11 by AC under an asset-light management model. One showcase is the Xiamen K11 Select art shopping centre, planned with state-owned Xiamen Rail Transit Group. The roughly 95,000-square-metre mall recently opened with more than 200 brands, an opening occupancy rate close to 90 per cent, cumulative footfall past two million and weekly sales rising 32 per cent since launch — figures the camp has held up as early proof of the independent cultural-commerce path.
New World itself, meanwhile, continues to wrestle with debt and large non-cash impairments. For the financial year ended 30th June 2026, revenue was about HK$19.992 billion, down roughly 28 per cent year on year, while the loss attributable to shareholders widened to about HK$28.149 billion. Late in September, the group also said it had signed a deed of termination with the Airport Authority to hand back early, in April 2027, the airport SKYCITY “11 SKIES” project in which it had invested some HK$20 billion. Under the arrangement it will transfer three office towers and an entertainment hub without charge, pay a HK$2.3 billion termination fee and cover engineering services capped at about HK$1.05 billion — more than HK$3 billion in total costs tied to the exit.
