Foreign Property News | Posted by Zarni Kyaw
In the heydays, we had Sim Wong Hoo, who founded Creative Technology and introduced notable products like the Sound Blaster audio card to us. The CEO and Chairman of the company, who turns 66 this year, reportedly draws an annual salary of S$1, lives in a small house in Bukit Timah and drives a Camry.
Contrast this with the news we’ve had in recent months where several younger technopreneurs and gaming accessory-related CEOs have been buying Good Class Bungalows (GCBs) and making the news for their purchases.
We covered some here, but that story’s focused mainly on naturalised foreigners who were settling down or investing in GCBs in Singapore. Fret not then. Here’s a list of Singapore-bred technopreneurs who have made good in their careers and bought at least one GCB.
TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi (38) – S$86m GCB at Queen Astrid Park
Singapore-bred Chew Shou Zi, 38, took over the reins as CEO of TikTok on April 30 this year, on top of being the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of TikTok’s parent firm, ByteDance in March. The Hwa Chong alumnus is an MBA graduate of Harvard Business School and holds a BSc in Economics from the University College London.
Prior to ByteDance, he was the CFO of Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and a partner at DST Investment Management. He’s married with two children.
(Chew with his wife, Vivian Kao, whom he met at Harvard. (Image credit: alumni.hbs.edu)
It is understood that he’s expected to buy a GCB at Queen Astrid Park for S$86m.
The land itself, which has a 999-year tenure, is about 31,800 sqft, with an estimated price of S$2,700 psf. Currently, an old bungalow occupies the site, so Chew will most likely redevelop the bungalow.
(According to our data, the last recorded transaction at Queen Astrid Park was on 18 June 2019, where a property on 15,871 sqft of land was sold for S$23.6m. The last recorded sold property with 35,012 sqft of land was sold in July 2016 for S$44.5m (average psf S$1,271). Data: 99.co Researcher.)
(Queen Astrid Park (Image source: Google Maps)
Ref: TikTok CEO buys S$86m GCB – it’s official, tech and gaming-related entrepreneurs are buying Good Class Bungalows (99.co)
