©Reuters

New World Development, the property developer controlled by one of Hong Kong’s most powerful families, said it had received the shareholder votes needed to push through a $2.8bn offer on the listed shares in its China subsidiary after a failed attempt two years earlier.

The company said it had overcome a headcount test requiring at least 75 per cent of shareholders to accept the offer. The test is based not just on shareholder value but the number of shareholders as well.

In 2014, that stopped NWD from taking the subsidiary private for $2.4bn, forcing the controlling family of Cheng Yu-tung, who is 90 years old, to wait at least 12 months to make another offer.

The latest bid for New World China Land had received approval from about 97 per cent of shareholders, NWD said in a statement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

As of Friday, the company said in a filing that it had not secured the needed headcount to complete the deal.

The Cheng family controls both NWD and the Chinese group and has worldwide interests including the jeweller Chow Tai Fook as well as hotels such as The Carlyle in New York and a 150-acre property redevelopment on London’s Greenwich peninsula.

The eventual success of the deal could pave the way for similar offers in which tycoons and their families seek to take private listed companies in which they already hold a controlling stake, bankers have said. The original deal had been considered part of a routine empire reshuffle by the billionaire Cheng family and its failure was seen as a serious loss of face.

Shares in New World China jumped to an eight-year high in January when NWD made a second offer of HK$7.80, a 26 per cent premium to its undisturbed price. On Monday, shares in the company closed at HK$7.68 before announcing it had received the necessary support from shareholders.

Although Hong Kong dropped the headcount rule two years ago, the test, which originated in Victorian times, is still required by the Cayman Islands and Bermuda — two jurisdictions in which three-quarters of Hong Kong-listed groups, including NWCL, are domiciled.

Minority shareholders late last year foiled a $13.7bn merger of two companies controlled by Li Ka-shing, one of Asia’s richest businessmen. Investors vote against a proposed merger of Cheung Kong Infrastructure and Power Assets Holdings — the latest stage in a reorganisation of sprawling business empire that started in January last year — even after Mr. Li sweetened the deal.

HSBC advised New World Development on the deal.