Singapore banking scion steps into luxury market
A scion of the Wee family, Singapore’s richest banking dynasty, is buying a S$39.5 million (HK$228.6 million) mansion, taking advantage of a lull in the highend real estate market.
Grace Wee Jingsi, the youngest child of United Overseas Bank chief executive Wee Ee Cheong, is buying the so-called good class bungalow at Ford Avenue, according to property filings lodged at the end of March.
The house is co-owned by Choo Chiau Beng, whose former roles include being chief executive of the infrastructure giant now known as Keppel and Singapore’s non-resident ambassador in Brazil. He acquired the more than 19,500 sq ft house in 2007, the records show.
The sale comes after Singapore’s high-end property market saw a tepid 2023, dented by a major money-laundering scandal and high interest rates. Last year’s transactions in the good class bungalow market were the lowest since 1996 when data became available, according to a recent estimate by CBRE.
Still, such properties, which number about 2,800, are highly coveted by the ultra-rich. The March transaction price is more than double that of a slightly larger mansion in the area, which was sold in 2019 for S$17 million.
The transaction also comes amid renewed attention on how the Wee family’s US$10.6 billion fortune will be dispersed, after the death of patriarch Wee Cho Yaw in February. Ee Cheong became the richest of the late Wee’s children, with a net worth of US$4.6 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates. Grace, a former consultant at Boston Consulting Group, now runs a wellness club in Singapore, and like Ee Cheong’s two other sons, is not actively involved in UOB’s banking business. Grace did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Choo was chief executive of Keppel between 2009-2013, when it still owned the world’s biggest builder of oil rigs, a unit he also led before his Keppel tenure.
His time at Keppel was marred by a scandal over illegal payments the company made to officials of Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro.
The unit eventually agreed to pay US$422 million to end a US probe into the illegal payments. Keppel, backed by state investor Temasek Holdings, sold its oil rig unit in a major restructuring last year.
The same year, Singapore’s anti-corruption agency announced a decision not to charge unnamed executives allegedly involved in the case, citing insufficient evidence.
Choo did not respond to a request for comment sent via LinkedIn.