Investing

NYC Becomes One Billionaire Family’s Haven From China Property Crash

Soho China’s founders shifted much of their fortune out of the country before controls tightened and the market imploded.

A pedestrian walks past the illuminated Sky Soho building in Shanghai.

Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
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In a townhouse facing St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan, the power couple behind one of China’s greatest commercial property empires is writing the playbook for how to move a fortune out of the Communist nation.

Zhang Xin and her husband Pan Shiyi, who grew Soho China Ltd. into a behemoth that reshaped the country’s skylines, have built a discreet family office called Seven Valleys — named for the book written in Persian by the founder of the couple’s Baha’i faith.