Chinese Billionaire 2nd Biggest Foreign Owner Of U.S. Land

A Chinese billionaire involved in online gaming has become the second-largest non-American landowner in the US.

Chen Tianqiao, who made his fortune from online gaming, owns 198,000 acres (80,127 hectares) of Oregon timberland, ranking him as the country's 82nd-largest property owner. I Photo: Comms88 Wikimedia Commons

Chen Tianqiao, who made his fortune from online gaming, owns 198,000 acres (80,127 hectares) of Oregon timberland, ranking him as the country's 82nd-largest property owner, according to the latest Land Report ranking.

Chen, 50, acquired the acreage from Fidelity National Financial Ventures for $85 million in 2015. Oregon tax records last month revealed the beneficial owner as Shanda Asset Management, the same name as Chen's Singapore-based holding group.

His Oregon property makes him one of the biggest individual owners of American land by a non-US citizen.

Only the Irving family of Canada, ranked No. 6 on the Land Report's list with over 1.2 million acres of Maine timberland, owns more. Foreign ownership of US land, especially land used for farming, has become a sensitive political issue in recent years.

As of 2021, about 40 million acres of American agricultural land were owned by non-US interests, with entities from China owning the equivalent of 0.03% of all US farmland.

The country's biggest landowner is the Emmerson family, owners of the timberland empire Sierra Pacific Industries, followed by billionaires John Malone, Ted Turner, and Stan Kroenke.

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