KE Holdings Lays Off Staff As Chinese Market Cools

October 20, 2021
Share this Post: 

KE Holdings, the operator of China's largest real estate marketplace and brokerage Beike, has laid off workers in Shanghai according to reports in the country.

While KE did not respond to a request for confirmation around the situation, according to reports in China the NYSE listed company has let staff go from its Shanghai operations in response to a cooling of the real estate market brought on by recent shifts in government policy.

The layoffs are reportedly from the company's financial division which offers financial products to home buyers and which, prior to layoffs, was reported to have some 600 employees. Information around the number of staff being made redundant was not available.

Looking at the company's SEC filings from the last few years, the number of employees at KE Holdings can be said to fluctuate at the best of times. From 2018 to 2019 employee compensation expenses went down by 20% before shooting up nearly 200% in 2020 to around $331 million.

KE Holdings is the largest portal operating company in the world and undoubtedly also one of the largest brokerage firms in the world by gross transaction volume as well ($536 billion in 2020). The firm owns and operates the market-leading Beike portal which last year had 3.7 million authenticated existing property listings.

 

In other news coming out of China, Beike's rival property vertical Anjuke may pull back from plans to go public. According to Bloomberg the 58.com-owned portal had been looking at a $1 billion IPO but has now shelved those plans because of cooling investor enthusiasm for tech stocks and the travails of the Chinese property market.

 

October 20, 2021
Edmund got to know the world of portals and marketplaces working at Mitula Group (which became Lifull Connect after the buyout in 2018). He worked directly with hundreds of portals across the world in his role in the content department for three and a half years before transferring to the SEO department to understand the inner workings of listings sites. He joined Online Marketplaces as Head of Content in March 2020.

Subscribe to our mailing list to get the famous, free Friday newsletter!

News and analysis to help build better online marketplace businesses, in your inbox, every Friday

Related News

Bienici Recruitment
Bien'ici Partners with Primary Market Specialist Ikimo9 to Provide Much Needed Mandates for Agent Customers

The French agent-owned real estate portal Bien'ici has partnered with the primary real estate comparison specialist Ikimo9 to help boost...

Read More
Costar Richmond Op5 2
"What moron would shoot themselves in the head by doing that?" - CoStar Boss Andy Florance Denies Involvement in Commissions Trials

CoStar CEO Andy Florance says that his company has nothing to do with the ongoing bombshell buyer-side commissions trials currently...

Read More
Shutterstock 1892686795 1
Will There Be Any Agent-Controlled Property Portals Left in Ten Years?

"Wow. Agents really missed the boat, didn't they?" That was my reaction when I first plotted the graphs for our...

Read More
Propertygurugroupboardroom
Propertyguru Appoints Ray Ferguson as New Chairman of the Board

PropertyGuru, Southeast Asia’s leading PropTech company, has appointed Ray Ferguson as the new Chairman of the Board, effective January 2024....

Read More

Editor's Pick