From left: Seow Kek Wee, associate director and CIO; co-owners Chua Hui Xin, chief people officer and executive director; and Patrick Tan, founder and chairman of Unicorn (Photo: Samuel Isaac Chua/EdgeProp Singapore)
Patrick Tan’s headquarters is not in a gleaming CBD office tower, but in a conservation shophouse in Geylang, complete with antique furniture, bird cages, and five kampung chickens roaming the backyard.
The 52-year-old founder and chairman of Unicorn, a financial services and wealth management firm, says the choice reflects both his investment philosophy and his upbringing in a Serangoon Gardens kampong, where his family reared pigs, ducks, and chickens, and operated an orchid farm.
After completing national service, Tan began his career in 1996 as an insurance agent with Prudential. The job required him to wear a suit daily and work in Shenton Way, but the setting never suited him.
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“I’m a coffee shop guy, and I’ve always preferred the outdoors,” he says, recalling how he solved his lunch dilemma by joining the Singapore Cricket Club and going there every day. These days, Tan favours the comfort of a $40 Snoopy-print T-shirt and exploring the forest next to his home at Windsor Park, a Good Class Bungalow area.
His stint as an insurance agent lasted just three months. Feeling constrained by the limits of selling insurance products alone, he struck out on his own as a financial planner. The work was rewarding, but paying $7 psf in monthly rent for his Shenton Way office soon began to grate.
“Even though we were making good money then, paying rent over the long term would be punishing,” he says.
In 2010, he bought his first property — a strata-titled office unit at The Arizon on Geylang Road — and set himself a goal to acquire one property a year (All photos by Samuel Isaac Chua/EdgeProp Singapore)
That realisation — and a desire for more control over his workplace — pushed him to look beyond the CBD. In the early 2000s, Geylang’s fringe-of-CBD location made it central yet undervalued, with freehold properties selling at prices well below other city-fringe districts. At the time, the neighbourhood’s red-light reputation kept prices low.
Tan saw both the investment upside and the opportunity to create a headquarters that reflected his values.
In 2010, he bought his first property — a strata-titled office unit at The Arizon on Geylang Road — and set himself a goal to acquire one property a year.
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Today, Unicorn owns eight strata office units in the freehold The Arizon, which the group calls the Unicorn Building
Today, Unicorn’s holdings in Geylang include eight strata office units at The Arizon (also known as the Unicorn Building), and three strata office units at The Sunflower, with the most recent being a 1,399 sq ft unit on the second floor purchased for $1.48 million in May 2023.
The crown jewels of his Geylang portfolio are two conservation shophouses: 662 Geylang Road, purchased in 2015 for $3.05 million, and JNP House at 12 Geylang Lorong 28, bought for $2.35 million in 2021.
Together, the 13 properties are worth an estimated $23 million and house the firm’s operations — from central processing and HR to shared workspaces, a TCM clinic, and client meeting spaces.
The exterior of the conservation shophouse at 662 Geylang Road, which Unicorn refers to as its "Kampung" or private club
The shophouse at 662 Geylang Road is the company’s “Kampung” — a private club where employees can work, host clients, and share meals. A full-time cook prepares home-cooked food daily, served to staff at cost, and company events are held there, too.
Inside, Tan has preserved much of the original interiors, including an opium bed, a grandfather clock, and an old-fashioned wall telephone.
Over the past decade, property values in Geylang have more than doubled. Ten months ago, Tan received an unsolicited $7 million offer for the 662 Geylang Road shophouse — more than twice his purchase price — but turned it down.
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“We invest in these properties as part of our business, and as a lifestyle for our people to enjoy — our staff as well as business partners and investors whom we treat like our family,” says Tan.
Tan has preserved much of the original interiors, including the previous owner's furniture
Chua Hui Xin, Unicorn’s chief people officer and executive director, says: “I like to say that Patrick’s the one who transformed Geylang from a red-light district into a financial hub.”
Chua joined Unicorn 17 years ago after a decade as a chartered accountant and regional finance manager at an MNC. Initially sceptical about needing a financial planner, she changed her mind after seeing Unicorn’s approach. So convinced was Chua that she joined the firm.
By 2014, she was appointed executive director and became the co-owner of Unicorn two years later. “There’s so much of the human element in it, not just financial goals,” she says. “It incorporates a person’s beliefs and values, what he wants to achieve for himself and his family.”
Tan sums it up: “Our philosophy is that financial planning for each individual is bespoke. We have zero cookie-cutter financial planning.”
Unicorn houses its various business units in the properties the group owns
Seow Kek Wee, associate director and chief investment officer of Unicorn, has been with the firm for close to 19 years. An NTU accountancy graduate, he began his career at PwC, becoming one of the firm’s youngest audit managers.
In 2007, he joined Unicorn’s wealth management division, and in 2015 succeeded Tan as head of the investing committee.
Over the past decade, Seow and his team of experts and researchers have tripled the firm’s assets under management to more than $0.5 billion. “We approach investing with planning and preparation,” he says. “I teach consultants to build relationships with clients so they stay the course during market downturns.”
According to Seow, the last financial crisis here was 17 years ago — the global financial crisis. “And we haven’t really had one in Singapore since,” he notes. “During such times, the wealth management business for the whole of Singapore plunges — yet it’s often the best time to invest.”
In fact, he adds, periods of global market turmoil and uncertainty often bring increased demand for Unicorn’s services. “When fear hits, when the news is bad, people’s instinct is to sell,” he says. “Our long-term investors have seen the benefits of investing during a crisis rather than divesting.”
One of the units has been turned into client meeting spaces and lounge
Unicorn constructs global portfolios that include equities, bonds, precious metals, and real estate, including REITs. “We see ourselves as stewards of our investments and our clients’ portfolios, so we prepare for the worst-case scenario,” says Seow. “It’s not a competition, but a journey to help our investors achieve their goals.”
That’s why the firm allocates about 20% of its portfolio to gold. “Gold is the ultimate safe-haven asset,” says Seow. “We’ve been investing in it for the past 20 years — in good times and bad — and we stay committed.”
Real estate remains a key interest for many Singaporean investors. Unicorn works closely with partners like Pegasus, a property advisory firm, and Redbrick, a mortgage advisory and brokerage firm.
The conservation terraced house at 12 Lorong 28 Geylang Road, acquired by Unicorn in 2021 for $2.35 million
Seow recalls asking the Pegasus CEO why he often advised ready investors not to buy. The reply: if he wouldn’t invest in a property himself, he wouldn’t recommend it. “These are people with integrity — the willingness to say no if they don’t believe it’s right for the investor,” says Seow. “And we want to work with people like that.”
Chua says, Pegasus' advisers often discourage clients from buying at new project launches. Instead, they evaluate whether it is the right time to buy, given the investor’s values, purpose and the opportunities available in the preferred location.
Renovations are underway, with the interiors of 12 Lorong 28 Geylang to be converted into a private dining area to entertain investors and business associates of Unicorn
While Unicorn serves some ultra-high-net-worth clients, Tan says most are PMEs — professionals, managers, and executives — and the firm never declines investors based on net worth. Its planners cater to young clients just starting out, more mature PMEs, and high-net-worth individuals seeking to grow personal or family wealth.
“We subscribe to the Warren Buffett school of thought, which is value investing,” says Tan. “When there are huge gains, we’re not at the party, and when there are huge drops, we’re not there either. The most important thing is that we and our investors can sleep well at night.”
That philosophy also mirrors Tan’s outlook on life. “I’m both a sentimental and pragmatic person,” he adds. “To me, a healthy life is about having both a recollection of the past and the responsibilities of the future. While I have sweet memories of the past, I’m also cognisant of the realities we must face.”
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