Billionaire Chua Thian Poh’s Ho Bee Starts Selling Waterfront Singapore Condo A Decade After Completion

Ho Bee Land—controlled by billionaire Chua Thian Poh—has started selling some of its luxury waterfront residential condominium units at Cape Royale on Singapore’s Sentosa Island, nearly a decade after completing the project.

The Singapore-listed developer said it sold about half of the 50 units it launched for sale on Wednesday, with the three-bedroom apartments fetching a median price of S$4 million ($2.85 million) and four-bedroom units going for S$5.5 million.

Ho Bee and partner IOI Properties—controlled by Malaysian billionaire brothers Lee Yeow Chor and Lee Yeow Seng—completed the 302-unit condominium in 2013 but decided to rent out the apartment units first (before selling them) as housing prices at the time dropped after the government introduced property cooling measures. Since then, prices across Singapore had climbed about 20%, government data show.

The company pioneered high-rise residential developments at Sentosa Cove, offering buyers panoramic views of the South China Sea. It has already built several condominiums in the exclusive residential enclave, including the 91-unit Turquoise and 151-unit Seascape, overlooking the marina. Chua, the company’s founder and executive chairman, has played the long game in these projects.

“This will become a world address for Singapore,” he predicted in an interview with Forbes Asia in 2016. “There are a scarce number of true waterfront housing properties. When the market comes back, when international buyers come back, we will do well.”

The strategy has paid off, with Ho Bee reporting a 141% increase in net profit to S$330.5 million in 2021, bolstered by increased rental income from its office properties in London as well as rising sales of its residential projects in Sentosa Cove.

Chua, 73, started his business making hooks and spikes for the logging industry before establishing Ho Bee as a luxury property developer known for building high-end condos. With a net worth of $1.35 billion, he was ranked No. 34 when the list of Singapore’s 50 Richest was last published in August.