Mainland Investor Elegant Group Buying Singapore’s Clementi Mall for $624.6M

Chinese investor Elegant Group is adding a fifth Singapore shopping centre to its portfolio, with the company led by Zhao Zhichao having agreed to purchase the Clementi Mall from Temasek Holdings’ Cuscaden Peak Investments for S$809 million ($624.6 million), according to sources familiar with the transaction who spoke with Mingtiandi.

In a positive sign for Singapore’s commercial property market, the private investment firm is paying a more than 7 percent premium to the top end of the guide price range of S$730 to S$750 million provided to potential bidders when Savills and Cushman & Wakefield began marketing the property on behalf of Cuscaden in August.

At the agreed compensation, Elegant Group is paying the equivalent of S$4,100 per square foot for the 195,772 square foot (18,188 square metre by net lettable area) community mall in western Singapore’s Clementi area, with news of the sales agreement having first been reported by the Business Times. 

The sale ranks as Singapore’s largest private investment transaction of 2025, excluding related party deals, according to agency data, with Elegant Group, after having spent more than $1.5 billion acquiring malls in the city-state since 2016, now ranking among Singapore’s most acquisitive retail investors. 

20% Above Valuation

Located at 3155 Commonwealth Avenue West in Clementi Town, the Clementi Mall benefits from a direct connection to Clementi MRT station and bus interchange and is within a minute’s walk of Grantral Mall@Clementi, which Elegant Group acquired in 2016 as its first major property in the city.

The six-storey property occupies a 99-year leasehold site on a tenure that began on 31 August 2010. 

The mall was described as 100 percent occupied at the beginning of the marketing exercise, with annual footfall of 30 million visitors. The agreed compensation represents a yield of 4.1 percent, based on net property income and a more than 20 percent premium to an independent appraisal conducted before the sale process began, which valued the property at S$645 million.  

Elegant Group is said to have shouldered aside 11 competing expressions of interest for the mall through the sale process, with eight investors having been shortlisted before Elegant Group went into exclusivity on the asset in October. 

The Clementi Mall had been part of the portfolio of Paragon REIT, an SGX-listed trust that Cuscaden Peak took private earlier this year. Cuscaden, which is owned 50:50 by Temasek portfolio companies Mapletree and CapitaLand, continues to hold the former REIT’s flagship asset, Paragon mall on Orchard Road, and a 50 percent stake in the Westfield Marion Shopping Centre in Adelaide, Australia.

Most Active Buyer, Biggest Mystery

While Elegant Group has spent more than $1.8 billion acquiring properties in Singapore and Australia over the past decade, little is known about the company or its owners’ source of wealth. 

Zhao is said to shuttle between Singapore and mainland China multiple times each month, with Elegant Group described in some media accounts as his family office.

Prior to agreeing to purchase the Clementi Mall, Elegant had acquired the Kinex shopping centre in Singapore’s Geylang area from UOL for S$375 million in a deal that closed on 31 October. 

In 2023, the company had spent S$338 million to purchase the Changi City Point mall near Singapore’s international airport from Frasers Centrepoint Trust.