Royal Group puts six HDB shophouses up for sale for S$73 million
[SINGAPORE] A portfolio of six HDB shophouses located across Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio and Tanjong Pagar is up for sale for S$73 million.
Based on checks by The Business Times, the shophouses are owned by Royal Group, a Singapore-based, single-family office founded by billionaire Asok Kumar Hiranandani.
The units can be acquired individually or as a portfolio, said marketing agent Savills Singapore on Wednesday (May 14).
One shophouse is located at the ground floor of 190 Toa Payoh Lorong 6, in the vicinity of HDB Hub.
Subdivided into three units and fully leased, the shophouse occupies a total lot area of 1,033 square feet (sq ft) and is being sold for a guide price of S$12 million.
Two shophouses at 702 and 705 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8 are located next to AMK Hub.
A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU
Tuesday, 12 pm Property Insights
Get an exclusive analysis of real estate and property news in Singapore and beyond.
Sign Up
Sign Up
'The properties have a wide street frontage along the pedestrian mall with strong visibility and are always fully leased,' said Nick Chan, associate director of investment sales and capital markets at Savills Singapore.
The 702 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8 shophouse spans 4,037 sq ft and is available from S$36 million. The 705 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8 shophouse, at 1,647 sq ft, has a guide price of S$10 million.
The remaining three shophouses in the portfolio are located in Tanjong Pagar Plaza.
Each unit is on sale from S$5 million.
The units enjoy substantial frontage along Tanjong Pagar Road and are located next to NTUC Fairprice, said Chan.
There are approximately 8,500 privately held HDB shophouses making them among the most tightly held commercial assets in Singapore.
'Each unit in the portfolio offers a gross yield of approximately 4 per cent, with further upside potential through rental reversion or further subdivision of space to drive rental income,' Chan noted.
'This portfolio provides investors with an immediate income-generating opportunity across three established and highly sought-after mature residential estates.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
3 hours ago
- Straits Times
US judge approves settlement allowing NCAA schools to pay athletes
The approval resolves long-running litigation between the NCAA and student athletes. PHOTO: REUTERS NEW YORK – A United States judge on June 6 granted final approval to a US$2.8 billion (S$3.6 billion) settlement with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that will allow schools for the first time to compensate student athletes for past and future commercial use of their names, images and likenesses. The settlement, approved in a ruling by US District Judge Claudia Wilken in the Oakland, California, federal court, resolves long-running litigation between the NCAA and student athletes. 'Despite some compromises, the settlement agreement nevertheless will result in extraordinary relief for members of the settlement classes,' Wilken wrote. She also said that the deal will 'permit levels and types of student-athlete compensation that have never been permitted in the history of college sports'. The ruling marked a 'historic day for college sports and the rights of athletes', the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, Steve Berman and Jeffrey Kessler, said in a statement. In a statement, NCAA president Charlie Baker welcomed the judge's ruling. 'Student-athletes will benefit from the rich opportunities they enjoy now, plus far more scholarship opportunities, landmark financial benefits and a streamlined NCAA to support them,' he said. The NCAA denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. The deal faced dozens of objections that it did not adequately compensate athletes or was unfair in other ways. Objectors to the deal now can appeal to the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The settlement, covering hundreds of thousands of current and former students since 2016, resolved three lawsuits that claimed NCAA rules barring payments to athletes violated US antitrust law. The US$2.8 billion will cover past damages. The plaintiffs' lawyers previously estimated the deal would provide tens of billions of dollars to class members over the next 10 years. Schools will be allowed to pay athletes from funds that universities receive from broadcasts and other commercial sources. The NCAA in April convinced a federal judge in Manhattan to dismiss a lawsuit seeking compensation for thousands of former student athletes who played team sports in college prior to 2016. Those students have filed an appeal. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Independent Singapore
5 hours ago
- Independent Singapore
‘Make space for Singaporeans to dream': Business struggles spark debate featuring Calvin Cheng over rent, manpower, and the future of local business
SINGAPORE: A recent Facebook post by businessman and former Nominated Member of Parliament Calvin Cheng has stirred heated conversation online, after he suggested that rising rents are not the primary cause of Singapore's F&B crisis—and that the government should resist interfering in the free market, especially by imposing rental controls or mandating support for local entrepreneurs. Cheng didn't shy away from admitting that the closures have been heartbreaking—familiar neighbourhood hangouts, late-night bars where friends gathered, even family-run cafes that felt like home, have all folded one after another. Yet he urged us to pause before pointing fingers at landlords. 'Most mall spaces are still taken,' he reminded readers, suggesting that behind every lease negotiation is a landlord weighing risks—sometimes betting on higher rents only to discover too late that demand has shifted. In his view, it's not a matter of landlords callously letting spaces sit empty; it's a delicate, often agonising decision that can leave both tenant and landlord worse off if the timing or market dynamics don't line up. 'It is simplistic to just blame rentals,' he wrote. 'Most of the time, landlords also take a gamble during renewal… If they make the wrong decision, they may end up with a lower rent.' Cheng also claimed that many local F&B entrepreneurs overestimate their financial capacity and falter due to inexperience, rather than being unfairly priced out. Manpower shortages and government policy While defending the market's self-regulation on rents, Cheng was more critical of the government's stance on manpower quotas, especially in the service sector. He asserted that tight restrictions on hiring foreign workers could have led to increased labour costs and service inefficiencies. See also Stories you might've missed, June 16 'I am often served by young, inexperienced and/or disinterested local service staff who never see F&B as a long-term career,' he said. 'If the government really wants to do something, they should relax the quotas on foreign manpower.' Cheng concluded that excessive government intervention in the market often leads to unintended consequences: 'When local entrepreneurs shut down, everyone loses their livelihoods anyway.' Yet Cheng's criticism of young local workers in the F&B sector has struck a raw nerve among many Singaporeans, especially youth and their families, who see part-time service jobs not as careers, but as lifelines. In a country where the cost of living continues to rise sharply—from transport fares to food prices and education costs—40% of polytechnic and university students take up part-time work at cafés, fast-food chains, or bubble tea outlets simply to make ends meet. For some, it's pocket money. For others, it's helping to pay for tuition fees, rent, or to lighten the financial burden on their families. To many of these young workers, the implication that they are 'disinterested' or 'inexperienced' misses the point. The service roles they hold are rarely career pathways—they're a means of economic and social survival in the city. For every customer served with a weary expression, there may be a backstory of exams, caregiving duties, or savings goals stretched thin by the realities of urban school life. Backlash from entrepreneurs and advocates His remarks were met with swift rebuttals from industry figures and local entrepreneurs, many of whom argue that the state has a responsibility to protect small businesses in the face of mounting structural disadvantages. Credit: Calvin Cheng Facebook Wally Tham, owner of the social impact marketing agency Big Red Button, issued one of the most widely resonant rebuttals. 'If the government doesn't protect small local businesses, and Singapore cannot produce large enterprises, we won't have a local culture of business,' Tham wrote. 'Imagine all restaurants only serving Mala offerings and all services imported from the West.' Tham's emphasis on preserving space for uniquely Singaporean business voices—both literal and symbolic—was echoed by other commenters who see rental costs as more than just an economic issue. Cheng, however, dismissed this framing. 'Business is not a culture. Business is about making money,' he replied. 'Good service is a business proposition… Culture is just a misnomer.'hmm. The emotional economics of leasing In a separate comment, Kina Huang, who identified herself as having three decades of experience working with landlords, shared a more human-centred critique. She called attention to what she described as a growing ruthlessness in commercial leasing practices, even toward long-standing, loyal tenants. Credit: Calvin Cheng Facebook 'If a business has been around for more than 15 years, they must have been doing something right. And if they have to close, something external must have gone terribly wrong,' she said. See also MOM: 3 workplace fatalities in 2020 to date 'Lease renewal should be renamed Lease Increment Exercise,' she concluded her comment. Huang recounted how only one leasing agent she encountered in 30 years showed genuine empathy toward tenants, suggesting that most decisions in the space are coldly transactional. A bigger question: What kind of country do we want? Do we want a country where only the biggest players can afford the rent and survive, or do we want to make sure there's still breathing room for the smaller spots that give our neighbourhoods personality? It's tempting to let free-market forces decide—after all, high-profile brands bring in foreign investments and big leases fuel massive growth. But when a local hawker or startup can't renew their lease because the rent jumps too much, it isn't just a business closing: it's one less place where friends meet for kopi, one less corner of our community. If the sheer cost of business keeps squeezing smaller operators, soon there won't be any local names left on the storefronts—just global logos. The real test is whether we can find a way to let big and small businesses coexist, so that big brands, aspiring and small entrepreneurs feel at home here. That balance can shape what Singapore looks and feels like in the years ahead.
Straits Times
7 hours ago
- Straits Times
US Supreme Court allows Doge broad access to Social Security data
Two labour unions and an advocacy group sued to stop Doge from accessing sensitive data at the Social Security Administration. PHOTO: REUTERS WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court on June 6 permitted the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), a key player in President Donald Trump's drive to slash the federal workforce, broad access to personal information on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems while a legal challenge plays out. At the request of the Justice Department, the justices put on hold Maryland-based US District Judge Ellen Hollander's order that had largely blocked Doge's access to 'personally identifiable information' in data such as medical and financial records while litigation proceeds in a lower court. Ms Hollander found that allowing Doge unfettered access likely would violate a federal privacy law. The court's brief, unsigned order did not provide a rationale for siding with Doge. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented from the order. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent that was joined by fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, criticised the court's majority for granting Doge 'unfettered data access' despite the administration's 'failure to show any need or any interest in complying with existing privacy safeguards.' In a separate order on June 6, the Supreme Court extended its block on judicial orders requiring Doge to turn over records to a government watchdog group that sought details on the entity established by Mr Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. Doge swept through federal agencies as part of the Republican president's effort, spearheaded by Mr Musk, to eliminate federal jobs, downsize and reshape the US government and root out what they see as wasteful spending. Mr Musk formally ended his government work on May 30. Two labour unions and an advocacy group sued to stop Doge from accessing sensitive data at the Social Security Administration, or SSA, including Social Security numbers, bank account data, tax information, earnings history and immigration records. The agency is a major provider of government benefits, sending cheques each month to more than 70 million recipients including retirees and disabled Americans. Democracy Forward, a liberal legal group that represented the plaintiffs, said June 6's order would put millions of Americans' data at risk. 'Elon Musk may have left Washington DC but his impact continues to harm millions of people,' the group said in a statement. 'We will continue to use every legal tool at our disposal to keep unelected bureaucrats from misusing the public's most sensitive data as this case moves forward.' In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the Social Security Administration had been 'ransacked' and that Doge members had been installed without proper vetting or training and demanded access to some of the agency's most sensitive data systems. Ms Hollander in an April 17 ruling found that DogeOGE had failed to explain why its stated mission required 'unprecedented, unfettered access to virtually SSA's entire data systems.' 'For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records,' Ms Hollander wrote. 'This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation.' Ms Hollander issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited Doge staffers and anyone working with them from accessing data containing personal information, with only narrow exceptions. The judge's ruling did allow Doge affiliates to access data that had been stripped of private information, as long as those seeking access had gone through the proper training and passed background checks. Ms Hollander also ordered Doge affiliates to 'disgorge and delete' any personal information already in their possession. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a 9-6 vote declined on April 30 to pause ms Hollander's block on Doge's unlimited access to Social Security Administration records. Justice Department lawyers in their Supreme Court filing characterised Hollander's order as judicial overreach. 'The district court is forcing the executive branch to stop employees charged with modernising government information systems from accessing the data in those systems because, in the court's judgment, those employees do not 'need' such access,' they wrote. The six dissenting judges wrote that the case should have been treated the same as one in which 4th Circuit panel ruled 2-1 to allow Doge to access data at the US Treasury and Education Departments and the Office of Personnel Management. In a concurring opinion, seven judges who ruled against Doge wrote that the case involving Social Security data was 'substantially stronger' with 'vastly greater stakes,' citing 'detailed and profoundly sensitive Social Security records,' such as family court and school records of children, mental health treatment records and credit card information. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
