Billionaire Cousins Emerge As Lone Bidder For Singapore Housing Site Amid Record Home Prices

A joint venture between companies controlled by Malaysian billionaire Quek Leng Chan and his Singaporean cousin Kwek Leng Beng emerged as the sole bidder in the latest government tender for a suburban residential site, reflecting their confidence in Singapore’s housing market as home prices in the Lion City remain at record levels.

Quek’s GuocoLand and partner Intrepid Investments—part of Kwek’s Hong Leong Holdings— jointly bid S$486.8 million ($367 million) for a 21,866-square-meter residential plot at Lentor Gardens in the northern Singapore town of Yio Chu Kang. The Urban Redevelopment Authority said on Tuesday it will evaluate the only bid for the 99-year leasehold site, and make a decision at later date whether to award the winning bid to the partners.

“Given the [recent] cooling measures, macroeconomic uncertainties and increased housing supply in Lentor, [some] developers may have been more cautious,” Steven Tan, CEO of property consultant OrangeTee & Tie, said by email, referring to the underwhelming result of the auction. The Lentor Gardens site can yield approximately 530 residential units, Tan added.

Companies controlled by the billionaire cousins are among the most active homebuilders in Singapore, acquiring limited housing sites across the island nation to replenish their land banks as the city-state continues to defy a global housing downturn. Private home prices rose 3.2% in the three months to March to a fresh record high, compared to the previous quarter, while transaction volumes slipped about 8% to 3,309 units quarter-on-quarter, flash estimates published by the URA on Monday show.

This is the second time in recent years that the billionaire cousins have teamed up to jointly undertake a housing project in Singapore. In January 2022, Quek’s GuocoLand, partnered with Intrepid and TID Residential—both linked to Kwek’s Hong Leong—to buy a 17,136-square-meter plot in Lentor Hills Road (near Lentor Gardens) for S$586.6 million at another government auction.

GuocoLand has been doubling down on residential projects in the Yio Chu Kang area. In July 2021, it beat nine other bidders in a government auction when it acquired a site in Lentor Central for S$784 million. The company started marketing the project, dubbed Lentor Modern, last September with 84% of the 605-unit development sold during the launch weekend.

Guocoland is controlled by Quek—Malaysia’s second-richest man with a net worth of $10.1 billion—through Hong Kong-based Guoco Group. Quek inherited his fortune from his father, one of three brothers who started a banking group in the 1920s. His cousin, Kwek, also a billionaire, is the executive chairman of Singapore-based property giant City Developments.