Daughter of Chinese steel-and-nickel tycoon picks up S$84 million Bin Tong Park bungalow

The price works out to S$2,988 psf on land; buyer’s father is the chairman of Tsingshan Holding Group, one of the world’s biggest stainless steel and nickel producers

Apr 24, 2024



THE daughter of China-born steel-and-nickel magnate Xiang Guangda has become the owner of a large brand-new bungalow in the Bin Tong Park Good Class Bungalow (GCB) Area of Singapore.

She paid S$84 million for the two-storey freehold property, which has enough space to park eight to 10 cars. The price works out to S$2,988 per square foot (psf) on the land area of 28,111 square feet (sq ft).

The bungalow, which has a basement, has a total built-up area of about 18,000 sq ft. It comes with six bedrooms, a 19-metre pool and living, dining and entertainment spaces. Other features include a wine cellar, a theatre and a gym.

Xiang Yangyang, who is in her mid-30s, bought the property from Nitin Sibal, a former hedge fund manager who is involved in the software and applications development business. He also has a family office.

Sibal built the property on the site of an old bungalow he bought for S$37.6 million or nearly S$1,338 psf on land in 2020.

Xiang Yangyang and her mother, He Xiuqin, are Singapore citizens and are understood to be based here.

Xiang Guangda and He are the founders of the privately held Tsingshan Holding Group, which is one of the largest stainless steel and nickel producers globally.

Xiang Guangda, who is in his 60s, is the group’s chairman. Its history goes back to the late 1980s, when the couple began a small business that made car doors and windows in Wenzhou, with about US$100,000 capital raised from family and friends.

In 1992, the business ventured into the manufacturing of stainless steel, and six years later, was renamed Tsingshan, according to news articles on the Internet.

The company grew rapidly, with a focus to bring down stainless steel manufacturing costs. During the 2000s, Tsingshan started to invest in nickel mines in Indonesia. The group set up nickel and stainless steel manufacturing complexes in Sulawesi.

Nickel is a key component in the production of stainless steel, and this strategy helped Tsingshan to further reduce the production cost of stainless steel. Tsingshan also set up factories in India and Zimbabwe. It is also the biggest shareholder in Australian company Nickel Industries.

Xiang Guangda and Tsingshan had generally kept a low profile despite the group’s expansion over the years. However, they were thrust into the limelight in 2022 when a big bet the group made that nickel prices would fall, turned out to be wrong.

Tsingshan incurred about a US$1 billion loss from that trade but emerged relatively unscathed from the episode.

In December 2023, Tsingshan’s lithium-ion battery manufacturing unit, REPT Battero Energy, was floated on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Xiang Yangyang, who is listed as a non-executive director of the group in the listing prospectus, attended the listing ceremony.

Bungalows in the 39 gazetted GCB Areas are the most prestigious form of landed housing in Singapore, with strict planning conditions to preserve their exclusivity and low-rise character. Among other things, a minimum plot size of 1,400 square metres or 15,070 sq ft is stipulated as the planning norm for newly created bungalows in GCB Areas.

With around only 2,700 such properties on the island, there is thus “rarity value” to owning one of these homes.

One generally has to be a Singapore citizen to be allowed to buy a landed property in a GCB Area.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/pro...-park-bungalow