Despite stamp duties and investigations, wealthy mainland investors are still banking on Singapore properties, with the wife of the country’s best known tech tycoon having purchased a row of shophouses in the Tanjong Pagar area last month for a reported S$45 million to S$50 million ($33.5 million to $37.2 million).
Zhang Ying, who married Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma in 1988 after the pair graduated from university together in Hangzhou, is the sole director of entities which purchased 70, 71 and 72 Duxton Road, a set of conserved shophouses near the city’s central business district, according to caveats filed with the Singapore Land Authority in January.
Zhang purchased the properties, which together span 10,174 square feet (945 square metres) of gross floor area, from Zain Fancy, a former Morgan Stanley executive who now operates local property investment firm Clifton Partners, according to the public records. Those caveats confirm an earlier report by the Business Times, with the news account also providing the estimated price tag.
While Ma, who set up Alibaba in 1999 before building it into China’s largest e-commerce player, is said to be based in Japan, Zhang Ying, who also goes by the English name Cathy, is now a Singapore citizen, and in 2019 was reported to have purchased a good class bungalow in the city-state’s Victoria Park area for $40 million. That fully detached home was later demolished to make way for a more modern luxury house.
Buy, Fix, Flip
The reported price for the properties near the intersection of Duxton Road with Craig Road is equivalent to as much as S$4,915 per square foot of gross floor area, with industry sources indicating that Zhang likely paid a premium for the properties in light of ongoing renovations that are now in the final stages.
Fancy, who set up Clifton Partners in 2011, had purchased the heritage properties in three separate deals during 2018, with local press reports at the time indicating that he paid a combined S$22 million for the set, or less than half the latest sale price.
Clifton Partners focuses on acquisitions of small to mid-size commercial and residential assets in the city-state, with a specialisation in shophouses in the downtown core.
The row of shophouses are permitted for conversion into an integrated development with restaurants on the first floor and office space on the second, third and mezzanine floors, based on planning decisions from the Urban Redevelopment Authority late last year.
Fancy and Clifton Partners had not responded to media inquiries by the time of publication.
Online to Offline
With its Southeast Asia headquarters located in Singapore, Alibaba and its leadership have been expanding their presence in the region’s top tech hub in recent years.
Zhang’s Duxton Road shophouses are within a 10-minute walk of 8 Shenton Way, the site of the former AXA Tower, which is currently being redeveloped by Alibaba and a consortium led by Perennial Real Estate into what will be Singapore’s tallest building upon its expected completion in 2028.
James Sheng Yifei, another Alibaba co-founder, in 2018 was reported to have purchased a good class bungalow fully detached home in Singapore’s exclusive Leedon Park area, and former Taobao president Sun Tongyu in 2015 purchased a penthouse at Ardmore Park in District 10 for S$51 million, according to earlier reporting by the Business Times.
Jack Ma stepped down as Alibaba’s executive chairman in 2019, but remains the company’s largest shareholder.
Zhang’s purchase follows a quiet year for Singapore shophouses in 2023, with only S$1.2 billion of the heritage properties changing hands last year. That total was down 25 percent from the S$1.6 billion invested in the segment in 2022, according to a recent report by Knight Frank.
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