A former oil tycoon convicted of cheating and inciting counterfeiting is selling his Singapore mansion for 43 million Singapore dollars, or $32 million.
Lim Oon Kuin, the founder of bankrupt oil company Hin Leong Trading, is putting his upscale bungalow in Tanglin Hill, one of the city’s wealthy enclaves, up for sale.
A home on private property is incredibly rare in this land-scarce city – which spans just 274 square miles. The largest and most expensive type of landed house available in Singapore is known as a Good Class Bungalow, or GCB.
There are only about 2,800 GCBs in Singapore. According to the Urban Land Authority, a GCB requires a minimum land area of 15,070 square feet and is only found in designated prime residential areas.
The GCB is a two-storey detached house with five bedrooms, a garden and a swimming pool. Knight Frank Singapore
The property is a two-story detached house with five bedrooms, a garden and a swimming pool, according to a press release from Knight Frank Singapore, which is handling the sale.
Lim, 81, was convicted last month of three criminal charges of cheating and forgery, according to local newspaper The Straits Times. His sentencing is scheduled for October 3. Lim’s lawyers did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Two charges against Lim involved deception on HSBC, while the third involved inducing one of his Hin Leong employees to falsify a document, according to the Business Times. The charges involved a total of $111.7 million.
Lim arrived at the Singapore State Court in a wheelchair on April 30. Reuters
Lim faces 127 other charges, which were dropped and will be dealt with later, according to The Straits Times. Prosecutors alleged that 16 Singapore banks suffered $291.9 million in actual monetary losses from the $2.7 billion in loans Lim cheated them into giving to Hin Leong.
According to Bloomberg, Hin Leong was “one of Asia’s largest suppliers of diesel and marine fuel” during its peak.
This is the third GCB that Lim has brought to the market.
In 2021, it sold a GCB in October 2021 for SG$33.39 million, and another GCB in November 2023 for just under SG$26.5 million.
“There has been a lot of buzz in the market about GCBs lately, and for good reason. In addition to offering substantial capital appreciation, the prime location of these valuable assets and access to options for lifestyle enhance their appeal,” Mary Sai, director of Knight Frank. director of capital markets, said in the release.
Some prominent business leaders who have purchased GCBs in Singapore in the past include Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok and billionaire James Dyson.
In April, Bloomberg reported that the wife of tech billionaire Forrest Li had filed an option to buy a GCB for SG$42.5 million.
According to CBRE’s luxury residential report, 23 GCB transactions worth SG$777.32 million were recorded in 2023, compared to 47 transactions worth SG$1.365 billion in 2022.
businessinsider
