Whole-floor penthouse on 63rd storey
is the most expensive buy so far at Marina Bay condo
Even as the wind is being taken out
of the sails in the high-end property market, one deal worth nearly
$15.5 million was inked recently.
Dr Bhupendra Kumar Modi, global chairman
and founder of Indian conglomerate Spice Corp, bought a whole-floor
penthouse unit at The Sail @ Marina Bay for a cool $15.463 million last
month.
The US$1.5 billion (S$2.2 billion) Spice
Corp group makes cellphones and operates a chain of cellphone retail
outlets and entertainment plazas in India.
Last month’s deal makes the 5,834 sq ft penthouse - atop the 63-storey
second tower of The Sail - the most expensive in the 1,111-unit condo,
though not in Singapore.
The price for the 99-year leasehold
apartment works out to $2,650 per sq ft (psf). Next door, a bigger penthouse
in the 99-year leasehold Marina Bay Residences was sold for $26.9 million,
or $2,446 psf in late 2006.
In Singapore, the record price is $5,600
psf for a 53rd-storey private apartment in The Orchard Residences. This
works out to $28.27 million for the 5,048 sq ft, 99-year leasehold unit.
On an absolute basis, a freehold apartment
on the 19th storey of The Marq on Paterson Hill was sold for a whopping
$31 million, but at a lower psf price of $5,100. Both deals were done
during last year’s boom.
Price was never an issue for Dr Modi,
59. It was love at first sight when he viewed the penthouse at The Sail,
which is the size of nearly six four-room HDB flats.
‘You either like or don’t like it,’
he said of his property buy. ‘The deal was closed in two hours. Even
my wife didn’t look at it.’
It comes with a lap pool, a private
terrace, four bedrooms and sweeping views of the Marina Bay area.
Designed by architect Peter Pran, The
Sail will be the tallest residential development in Singapore when completed
this year. Its other tower has 70 storeys.
‘I have a lot of global guests…I want
to show them the best of Singapore and this flat allows me to do that,’
said Dr Modi, who became a permanent resident here on Aug 15, India’s
Independence Day.
He has just relocated the global headquarters
of the Mumbai-based Spice Corp here.
When renovation work at his penthouse
is completed by the start of next year, he will move from his current
base in Beverly Hills in the United States to Singapore.
Over there, Dr Modi has an 8,000 sq
ft house with five bedrooms and a pool.
‘There, I had my family with me. Here,
my son wants to live separately,’ he said.
His son Dilip, 32, is the group president
for global operations at Spice Corp. One of his daughters Divya, 26,
is its global director of finance.
His son will set up home at one of his
two older properties here - a $12.5 million unit at The Claymore, bought
six years ago, and a $10.5 million Ardmore Park unit bought in 2006.
Dr Modi has a fourth personal property
in Singapore, a $10.5 million penthouse of around 5,000 sq ft in Sentosa
Cove. He will use the unit, ‘right by the sea’, as a weekend home to
get away from the madding crowd, ‘to read and to meditate’.
All the four homes were bought in his
personal capacity.
He has three other company-owned properties
in Singapore: an office property and two small residential properties
in East Coast used as company guesthouses.
Dr Modi said he will create an ‘environment’
in The Sail penthouse that is similar to that of his Beverly Hills house.
That means turning The Sail penthouse
into a swish ‘24/7′ entertainment zone.
‘I like to be with people all the time,’
said the man who led the world’s largest delegation of spiritual leaders
to The Millennium World Peace Summit held at the United Nations General
Assembly, and who is also president of the Maha Bodhi Society of India,
an organisation aimed at reviving Buddhism in India.
Dr Modi, a Buddhist, has reportedly
demanded Indian citizenship for the Dalai Lama. He has a film-making
firm called Buddha Films.
He has also announced his plans to help
revive the shopping and entertainment scene here.
During Spice Corp’s opening here in
the middle of last month, he said his group will invest US$200 million
in a 24-hour entertainment and shopping complex, as well as a cellphone
software development centre here.
His purchase of The Sail has netted
the seller, Dr Sudhir Gupta, $6.6 million.
Dr Gupta, 50, is the New Delhi-born,
Moscow-educated Singaporean businessman who made headlines when he bought
the same unit in late 2005 for $8.8 million or $1,508 psf - then above
the condo’s average price of $1,080 psf.
Dr Gupta, who became a Singaporean in
1997, had also bought 21 other units at The Sail for an average price
of $1,150 psf around that time.
He was born into a middle-class family
in New Delhi but went on to start a tyre company in Moscow. He later
acquired a Dutch tyre-maker and listed the merged entity in London in
2005.
Dr Modi, on the other hand, is the son
of Mr Gujar Mal Modi, who founded one of India’s largest industrial
conglomerates, the Modi Group.
Dr Modi parted ways with his family
in the early 1980s and, with the money from the split, started a series
of joint ventures with global corporations, the first with Xerox.
‘He is from Delhi city so he knows us
for a long time,’ said Dr Modi of Dr Gupta. Still, he bought his penthouse
through a broker.
‘I never use my personal relationship.
He didn’t know I bought it until later.’
Market watchers say the $15.463 million
price tag is high given today’s weak property market.
‘This penthouse is unique as it’s on
a whole floor, offering a 360-degree view and on a very high 63rd floor,’
said Knight Frank’s director of research and consultancy, Mr Nicholas
Mak, explaining its high price.
‘But such transactions are rare and
getting more so these days because the market has turned more cautious.’
There are many potential landlords at
The Sail but few takers for now, market watchers said. Apart from possibly
high asking rents, there is also construction work going on near the
development.
Dr Modi now has 13 properties all over
the world. Apart from the four here, the rest are in Bangalore, Beijing,
Beverly Hills, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, London, New Delhi, New York and
Shenzhen.
On his latest buy here, he said: ‘Beauty
is in the eye of the beholder. It is a location I like very much…It’s
not something I bought to sell. I never sell my houses.’
360-degree view
‘I have a lot of global guests… I want
to show them the best of Singapore and this flat allows me to do that.’
- DR BHUPENDRA KUMAR MODI, global chairman and founder of Indian conglomerate
Spice Corp
