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Forbes
30-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Tycoon Ong Beng Seng's HPL, Potential Partners In Talks To Redevelop Singapore Assets
The Voco Hotel Orchard Road. one of the three properties Hotel Properties plans to redevelop. Hotel Properties Ltd. (HPL)—which counts tycoon Ong Beng Seng and his wife Christina among its biggest shareholders—is in talks with potential partners to redevelop three of its adjoining prime properties on Orchard Road, Singapore's main shopping strip. 'Several interested parties have approached the company,' HPL said in a statement to the Singapore Exchange late Tuesday. 'A joint venture in relation to the properties is a possibility.' The company won regulatory approval in 2023 to redevelop the Forum shopping center, Voco hotel and HPL House in the Orchard Road shopping precinct into a mixed-use project comprising a hotel as well as retail, office and residential components on the three sites with a combined land area of 14,027 square meters. Under the plan unveiled two years ago, HPL will build a 64 story skyscraper, along with a 43-story tower, a separate 29-story block, a rooftop garden and a performance theater. The entire project—which analysts estimate would entail investments of as much as S$2 billion ($1.6 billion) will have a built up space of 114,153 square meters when completed.. 'The company continues to explore the viability of redeveloping the properties with some of these interest parties,' Hotel Properties said. 'There's no certainty that any discussions with these interested parties will result in any transaction.' The project would be the largest property redevelopment on Orchard Road, which has recently seen a number of older buildings earmarked for redevelopment as the government aims to rejuvenate the shopping district as a pedestrian friendly and green urban destination. Tycoon Asok Kumar Hiranandani's Royal Group is building a boutique hotel on the site of the former site of the Ming Arcade shopping center on Cuscaden Road into a boutique hotel, while Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto's Pacific Eagle Real Estate is redeveloping the nearby Tanglin Shopping Centre. Ong, whose Hotel Properties has a portfolio of assets across 15 countries including the Four Seasons Hotel in Singapore and resorts in the Maldives, has a current net worth of $1.7 billion that he shares with his wife. The tycoon, who also owns the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix franchise, stepped down as the Hotel Properties' managing director in April after becoming embroiled in a corruption case that led to the imprisonment of a senior politician. He is scheduled to plead guilty next week to charges of abetting former Transport Minister S. Iswaran over flights and a hotel stay in Doha.
South China Morning Post
14-04-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Ong Beng Seng to step down from Singapore property firm amid Iswaran scandal
Ong Beng Seng, the billionaire set to plead guilty for his role in a Singapore corruption scandal, will step down as the managing director of the property firm he founded more than four decades ago. Advertisement Singapore-listed Hotel Properties Limited said Ong 'wishes to devote more time to manage his medical conditions', according to an exchange filing on Monday. He will also not put himself up for re-election as a board director at the firm's annual general meeting on April 29. Shares of Hotel Properties rose as much as 4.7 per cent in Singapore trading on Monday amid a broader market upswing, the biggest intraday gain in more than a month. The illuminated circuit for the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix night race is seen in 2017. Ong Beng Seng has been credited with bringing Formula One to Singapore. Photo: AFP The departure is a major transition for the company that has interests in hotels and other developments spanning the globe from London to the Maldives, with little indication so far as to who will succeed him. Ong began Hotel Properties in 1980 and has been a director at the firm since then. During his tenure, the Malaysian tycoon established himself as a high profile and at times controversial public figure in Singapore. His children do not sit on the firm's board. His brother-in-law David Fu Kuo Chen is a director. The 79-year-old has been credited with bringing the Formula One night race to the city state and won the rights to the Singapore Grand Prix. But his penchant for wooing the elite has backfired in the past. In 1996, Hotel Properties was plunged into controversy after offering discounts to two of the country's top political figures, then-deputy prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong , and his father, Lee Kuan Yew , for luxury apartments in the exclusive Nassim Road enclave. Both former long-time prime ministers were later cleared of any impropriety, and neither Ong nor his company were found to have breached any laws or rules. Ong Beng Seng (second from left) pictured with former government minister S. Iswaran (second from right) in May 2007. Photo: EPA-EFE
