Why Hong Kong-linked Kingsford Development can’t sell flats on a US$600 million Singapore property
- Kingsford Development once made headlines for the opulence of its chairman’s US$24 million Singapore home.
- Now its shoddy work at an estate it bought for US$600 million has it back in the news for all the wrong reasons
Within Singapore’s exclusive Sentosa Cove enclave is a two-storey house shaped like a grand piano, with a swimming pool on its roof, a living area that opens out to the waterfront, a black Rolls-Royce in the porch and a blue Bentley parked nearby.
The property, on an 18,794 square-foot plot, put owner Cui Zhengfeng in the news in 2014, when he paid S$33 million (US$24.35 million) for it. The board chairman of the Hong Kong-linked Kingsford Development Pte Ltd is a Chinese national turned Singapore citizen.
Since arriving on the Singapore scene in 2011, his group has gained a reputation for splashing out on land for condominium projects, paying property agents more than the market rate, and hosting parties where guests go home with expensive watches won in lucky draws.
But the Kingsford group has also had to deal with unhappy buyers complaining of shoddy work, and action by the authorities to get it to shape up on safety at its work sites and the quality of its projects.
Kingsford Huray Development paid a hefty S$830 million (US$612 million) in 2017 to buy the ageing Normanton Park estate at well above the asking price in a collective sale, and that was before paying over S$500 million more in redevelopment fees and to top up its lease to 99 years.
But this year, authorities blocked it from selling the project’s nearly 1,900 new units until it proves they are in a fit state to be released.
