TT International bosses’ home for sale at $48 mil
At the corner of Coronation Road West and Holland Road is a Good Class Bungalow with a sweeping driveway, and a grand entrance situated 8m above street level. “With a bit of sprucing up, it is nice enough to be on the set of Crazy Rich Asians,” says Steve Tay, senior vice president of List Sotheby’s International, the exclusive marketing agent for the property.
The house at 1 Coronation Road West sits on a regular-shaped, freehold site of 28,474 sq ft, with a 60m frontage and 55m width — big enough for an Olympic-sized pool. The existing mansion has a built-up area of 15,000 sq ft spread across two floors and an attic.
The eight-bedroom house was designed with two wings flanking a 20m swimming pool. One of them is the private wing, with four bedrooms on the first level, and glass sliding doors leading out to the pool. The other wing is where the kitchen, utility area, helpers’ room and storage rooms are located.
Built in the 1990s, the house was designed with a grand entrance hall of 10m ceiling height, as well as ceiling and pillars of hand-painted Venetian plaster. The stainedglass windows on either side of the main entrance and the chandeliers in the house were imported from Italy. The balcony on the second level looks out to the entrance hallway, “where you can welcome your guests as they come in”, says Tay.
A property title search shows that the house had belonged to Julia Tong, executive director and co-founder of Singapore-listed electronics and furniture retailer, TT International; and her husband, Sng Sze Hiang, chairman and CEO of the firm. The couple had owned the
home since 1994, before it was foreclosed by IFS Capital in February 2020.
Major restructuring
TT International has been undergoing a major restructuring since it entered a Scheme of Arrangement sanctioned by the Singapore High Court in October 2010, as an alternative to judiciary management and liquidation of the firm. It is working closely with its creditors to bring in strategic investors and finance its debt.
In its heyday back in 1999, TT had launched its own brand of consumer electronics, Akira; and ventured into third-party warehousing and logistics services. It was listed on the mainboard of the Singapore Exchange in 2000. TT expanded into the furniture retail business after acquiring the furniture companies from Novena Holdings in 2007, including Novena Furnishing Centre, Castilla Design and Natural Living, as well as Barang Barang furniture retailer that same year.
In September 2018, Big Box Singapore (BBS), the owner of the eight-storey Big Box warehouse-mall at Jurong Gateway, initiated creditor’s voluntary liquidation. TT owned a 51% stake in BBS. The building was purchased by Perennial Holdings for $118 million last December. The deal was said to be completed in February this year. Perennial announced that it would invest another $70 million to redevelop the building into a business park project named Perennial Business City.
In July 2019, a Seychelles-incorporated firm, Celestial Palace, granted TT a convertible loan of $48 million in order to provide alternative funding for a new restructuring scheme.
The latest announcement by TT, posted on June 1, 2021, was that the firm had applied to the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading for an extension of three months, until Aug 31, to announce its unaudited financial statements for the full financial year ended March 31, 2021 (FY2021); a twomonth extension until Oct 14, 2021, to an
nounce its unaudited financial statements for 1QFY2022; as well as a four-month extension to hold its annual general meeting for FY2021. Trading of the company’s shares was suspended in August 2017.
A multi-generational family home
Meanwhile, the GCB at 1 Coronation Road West will be put up for sale by tender on July 10, with the tender closing a month later on Aug 10. The guide price is $48 million, says List Sotheby’s Tay. This translates to a land rate of $1,686 psf.
Even before the tender is launched, two parties have already made offers “above $40 million”, according to Tay. Both parties intend to retain the existing structure of the house. The façade may need to be modernised, the windows and glass sliding doors replaced, the kitchen and bathrooms renovated, and the plumbing, air-conditioning as well as mechanical and electrical systems overhauled.
Some of the bedrooms could be recon
figured to suit the new family’s needs, notes Tay. The existing attic is spacious enough to be carved up into a separate entertainment lounge, a separate games room, study or reading corner and home cinema, he says. Tay estimates such additions and alterations would take up to a year and cost “between $1 million and $2 million”.
If the new owner decides to tear down and rebuild a new “masterpiece” including the construction of a new basement garage, it could cost up to $15 million and take at least three years to complete, especially with the recent shortage of workers due to the pandemic, estimates Tay. However, the property could be reorientated to face the Queen Astrid Park and Coronation Road West GCB, with mainly low-rise bungalows sitting on large plots with lush gardens. “It will have a nice, open view of the surroundings,” he says.
According to Tay, the property is ideal as “a multigenerational family home”. The property will be put up for tender as “we feel that it’s a fair and transparent mode of sale”, says Tay. “Sentiment in the GCB market is positive,” he adds. “We believe this is a good time to put the property for sale, and to achieve the best value for this asset.”