Viva Land Nears Deal to Sell Singapore Hotel to Local Construction Firm at 30% Loss

Viva Land is exiting the former So/ Singapore hotel it acquired in May of last year.

A company linked to jailed Vietnamese businesswoman Truong My Lan is in the process of selling a five-star hotel along Singapore’s Robinson Road at a 30 percent discount from what it paid for the property last year, according to market sources.

An entity related to contractor Sunray Woodcraft Construction, which is controlled by Tan Teng Huat and family, is in due diligence to buy the 134-key Hotel Telegraph at the corner of Robinson Road and Boon Tat Street from Viva Land for around S$170 million to S$180 million ($125 to $133 million), people familiar the matter told Mingtiandi this week.

Should Singapore-based Viva Land sell the hotel at the low-end of the reported price range, it will be booking a S$70 million loss on the disposal after having paid a record S$240 million to acquire what was then the So/ Singapore hotel in a deal signed in May 2022.

Singapore’s Viva Land has been making headlines over the past year due to its links to Vietnam’s Viva Land Management & Development JSC. Truong My Lan ran Viva Land in Ho Chi Minh City as a unit of her Va Thinh Phat Group until being jailed for swindling investors in October last year. Representatives of the Singapore company have previously denied any links between the two Viva Lands despite the two entities listing shared directors in public filings.

Redevelopment Potential

The price said to be under discussion for the central business district hotel asset translates to as low as S$1.27 million per room, or about 30 percent less than the record S$1.8 million per room Viva Land paid to acquire the property from local developer Royal Group in May 2022. The structure incorporates a heritage building which would restrict the owner’s options for renovating or redeveloping the property.

Van Thinh Phat’s Truong My Lan remains in custody (Image: Ministry of Public Security DSRV)

A Sunray entity holds a 10 percent stake in a joint venture which acquired 39 Robinson Road, an office block adjacent to the Hotel Telegraph, from Viva Land for S$399 million in March. Singapore-listed mainland firm Yangzijiang Shipbuilding owns 81 percent in the JV while the remaining 9 percent is held by ICH Singapore, a boutique investment firm led by Singaporean tech financier Danny Toe.

Combining the adjoining hotel and commercial building could present an opportunity to develop a larger, mixed-use complex with the two properties located opposite the Lau Pa Sat food centre at the heart of the central business district, according to local analysts.

Sunray, a 36-year-old firm known for fit-out of hotels, restaurants, banks and museums, is expected to rebrand Hotel Telegraph if it proceeds with the acquisition, according to market watchers. The transaction has yet to close and no sale is certain.

Liquidation Sale

With Viva Land nearing a discounted deal for the sale of Hotel Telegraph, and after the company sold 39 Robinson Road for 20 percent less than the record S$500 million it had paid to acquire the building in 2020, a real estate portfolio linked to Truong and her husband, Hong Kong businessman Eric Chu, is being rapidly sold down around the region.

The Vietnam-linked firm began shopping both 39 Robinson Road and Hotel Telegraph at the beginning of this year, having set a target at the time of closing the tender in early February.

During February Chu sold a development site in Hong Kong’s Quarry Bay for HK$435 million (then $55.46 million), which represented a 36 percent mark-down from what he had paid in acquiring the property in 2018.

In June Chu was reported to have sold a hotel on King’s Road in Hong Kong’s Tin Hau area for HK$470 million – taking a 40 percent hit from the 2017 purchase price, and let go a luxury villa in Sun Hung Kai’s Severn 8 project on the Peak for HK$300 million.

The businessman has also been looking for a buyer for the Nexxus office tower in Hong Kong’s Sheung Wan, which has reportedly been the target of offers in the neighbourhood of HK$6 billion.

As founder and chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Group, the parent company of HCMC-based Viva Land Management & Development, which shares management with Viva Land in Singapore, Truong has been charged with illegally issuing financial instruments and fraudulently collecting trillions of Vietnamese dong from 2018 to 2019.

Public records show ex-CapitaLand executive Lian Pang Chen as chairman of Vietnam’s Viva Land and sole director of Viva Land in Singapore.

In January of last year before the bond fraud scandal emerged, Singapore-based Viva Land acquired the Capital Place twin office tower in Hanoi from property heavyweight Capitaland Investment for S$751 million.

According to local news outlets in Vietnam this week, Truong, along with a number of her colleagues continue to be be held by authorities.

Sunray’s Bargain Hunting

Chaired by Tan Teng Huat with his sister, Connie Wu as chief executive, Sunray has become one of the largest interior fit-out firms in Singapore, and has established a presence in other parts of Asia including China, India, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. Some of the major hotel operators it worked with were Shangri-La Hotels, Park Regis and The Fullerton Hotels.

Aside from Hotel Telegraph and 39 Robinson Road, the Tan family in August this year, acquired the Reebonz Building in Singapore’s Tampines North area for S$39 million, according to an account by the Business Times.

The eight-storey facility served as the headquarters of Singaporean online luxury marketplace Reebonz until the company’s liquidation in 2021.

Mingtiandi reached out to Sunray for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.

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