Simon Cheong sells Peirce Rd house for quick profit

Published April 1, 2006


PROPERTY FEVER
Simon Cheong sells Peirce Rd house for quick profit
He had bought 6 freehold bungalows for $5.8m each, sells one for $9m


By KALPANA RASHIWALA


SIMON Cheong has again proved himself a savvy property investor. In about three months, he has made a handsome $3 million-plus profit on a Good Class Bungalow.


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Savvy buy: The Peirce Road property (above) is one of 6 designed by renowned architect Ettore Sottsass, which Mr Cheong (next) bought from the mortgagee, Citibank

Mr Cheong recently sold for $9 million one of six freehold Peirce Road bungalows he bought for an average price of $5.83 million each. The buyer is believed to be a permanent resident who is a director of an international fund.

Mr Cheong paid $35 million for the six bungalows in a deal signed in December last year and completed in March. The property he has just sold - 26 Peirce Road - has two storeys plus a basement and a site area of 15,834 sq ft.

Mr Cheong's purchase of the six bungalows was brokered by Jones Lang LaSalle. The bungalows, completed about five years ago, were designed by renowned architect Ettore Sottsass, a grandee of late 20th century Italian design and founder of the early 1980s Memphis Collective architectural movement. Mr Cheong bought the properties from the mortgagee, Citibank.

His average acquisition price worked out to $365 per square foot of land area. The $9 million he has achieved for No 26 translates to $568 psf. The five neighbouring bungalows Mr Cheong bought are at No 26 A to E Peirce Road.

Good Class Bungalows are governed by stringent planning rules that ensure the exclusivity and low-rise character of their neighbourhood is preserved.

Mr Cheong's listed SC Global Developments recently bought 13 freehold apartments at The Tomlinson for about about $55 million or $1,500 psf. A subsidiary of SC Global bought them from the project's developers, Wing Tai and AIG, and is expected to sell them later for a profit.

In March, SC Global clinched Paterson Tower in a collective sale for $266 million, which works out to $1,064 per sq ft per plot ratio (psf ppr), inclusive of an adjoining 6,459 sq ft plot of state land that can be bought for about $4.5 million.