A Chinese language billionaire credited with pioneering the web video gaming business has turn into the second-biggest overseas proprietor of US land because of his almost 200,000 acres of Oregon timberlands.
Chen Tianqiao, 50, acquired the massive tracts in Oregon from Constancy Nationwide Monetary Ventures for $85 million, or about $430 per acre, in 2015, in keeping with the Land Report, which lists the Chinese language-born, California-based businessman because the 82nd-largest property proprietor in America.
Regardless of the almost decade-old buy, the publication solely added Chen to its Prime 100 Landowners checklist this week.
Chen’s trails solely Canada’s Irving household in overseas possession on the checklist.
The Irvings personal 1.2 million acres of Maine timberland, placing them No. 6 on Land Report’s rating.
Chen made his fortune by founding on-line gaming firm Shanda Interactive in 1999.
Inside 5 years, it grew to become one among China’s largest Web corporations, producing well-liked video games like “The Phrase of Legend,” “Dungeons & Dragons On-line” and “Last Fantasy XIV.”
The corporate was additionally listed on the Nasdaq within the US after elevating $152 million — then the most important IPO of a Chinese language web firm within the US, in keeping with Shanda’s web site.
By 2012, Chen took the corporate personal, stepped down as CEO and moved his holding group, Shanda Funding Group, from China to Singapore.
As of 2024, Forbes has Chen’s web price pegged at $1 billion — down from its peak of $1.5 billion a decade in the past.
Representatives for Chen at Shanda didn’t instantly reply to The Submit’s request for remark.
Rural properties have been a well-liked asset for ultra-wealthy buyers lately, as the typical worth of US cropland jumped 8.1% in 2023 alone, Bloomberg reported, citing information from the US Division of Agriculture.
American farmland has risen greater than a 3rd in worth since 2020, per the USDA.
The nation’s largest landowner is the Emmerson household, homeowners of timberland empire Sierra Pacific Industries, in keeping with the Land Report’s rating, adopted by media business billionaires John Malone and Ted Turner, and sports activities mogul Stan Kroenke.
Apart from actual property within the US, Chen’s investments span private and non-private equities and enterprise, per Shanda’s web site.
Chen and his spouse, Chrissy Luo, purchased the Vanderbilt Mansion on East 69th Avenue in Manhattan for $39 million in 2018. In 2021, they have been linked to the $25 million buy of the historic Seeley Mudd Property within the Los Angeles suburbs.
The couple’s philanthropic efforts embody an preliminary $115 million founding donation to the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience on the California Institute of Know-how in 2016.
Per the Institute’s web site, “it’s a key part of a neuroscience initiative that’s geared towards deepening our understanding of the mind’s construction and the way the mind works at its most elementary degree.”