EXCLUSIVE: Wing Tai chief sells GCB for whopping $230m

SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - The biggest Good Class Bungalow (GCB) plot on Nassim Road, at No. 33, has been sold for $230 million, setting a new record in terms of absolute transacted price. At 84,544 sq ft, it’s one of the largest freehold GCB plots on Nassim Road that remain intact today.

The seller is Winright Investment, a private company set up for holding property investments, owned by property magnate Cheng Wai Keung, chairman of Singapore-listed Wing Tai Holdings, and his wife Helen Chow. Cheng declined to comment when contacted by EdgeProp Singapore.

The buyer is believed to be a Singapore-owned trust, SG Casa.

A property title search showed that the contract for the purchase was exercised on May 10, with the transfer to the buyer completed and registered on July 4.

Nevertheless, at $2,720 psf, the price achieved for the Nassim Road GCB is still one of the highest in terms of psf price today. Most of the recent record prices in psf terms were for new GCBs sitting on smaller sites.

For instance, the GCB at Jervois Hill sitting on a 15,094 sq ft, freehold site fetched $41.2 million ($2,730 psf) in June last year. Meanwhile, earlier this month, a newly completed GCB on Cluny Road purchased by the UK’s richest man, James Dyson, is said to have fetched a price of above $41 million. The bungalow sits on a land area of about 15,100 sq ft. The original price tag of the bungalow was $45 million or $2,980 psf.

“Given the land size of the Nassim Road GCB, the magnitude of the price – both in absolute and psf terms -- is astounding,” according to a source who declined to be named.

Six years ago, the GCB at 33 Nassim Road was in the limelight when it was put on the market for sale by tender, with JLL as the exclusive marketing agent. The asking price then was $250 million to $300 million, which translated to $2,957 to $3,548 psf.

The GCB is large enough to be sub-divided into four smaller GCB parcels of about 20,000 to 21,000 sq ft each. In fact, a written permission was obtained in March 2016 for the sub-division of the land into four smaller plots, according to EdgeProp Inspector Tool.

However, the double-storey mansion with its sprawling garden, tennis court and swimming pool at 33 Nassim Road remains unchanged. The site, which has a long frontage of about 100m, is bordered by a thick hedge of trees, providing privacy from prying eyes.

Even in the current climate of record prices achieved by Chinese billionaires and single-handedly by Dyson, the GCB at 33 Nassim Road recently sold by Wing Tai’s Cheng still succeeds in shattering all records for GCBs – both in absolute and psf terms.