Top Global's top gun has ambitious plans
Group sets up joint venture property consultancy
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
(SINGAPORE) Top Global, controlled by Sukmawati Widjaja - sister of tycoon Oei Hong Leong - is looking at building up a property investment and development business in Singapore, China, Indonesia and Malaysia. It also plans to acquire or lease hotels in Chinese cities, says CEO Hano Maeloa, who is the son of Madam Sukmawati.
And the Catalist-listed company recently established a property consultancy company in Singapore with two partners which it hopes to franchise in Indonesia. Top Global set up Global Property Strategic Alliance Pte Ltd, or GPS Alliance Pte Ltd for short, late last year with Dennis Yong and Jeffrey Hong.
The two men were previously chief operating officer and executive director (agency) respectively at HSR and each holds a 15 per cent stake in the new property consultancy group.
Top Global controls the remaining 70 per cent. GPS Alliance's existing suite of services includes real estate brokerage (covering resales of condominiums and landed properties in Singapore), corporate leasing, commercial properties, and investment sales.
Next month, it plans to begin brokerage of HDB resale flats and marketing of overseas properties.
GPS Alliance Pte Ltd currently has about 30 full-time staff and over 100 associates (who are paid by commission only). The target is to grow the associates number to 500 to 1,000 by year end.
Setting up a property consultancy business will not only help parent Top Global source for deals like development sites in Singapore but give it first-hand knowledge of the latest property market trends, says Mr Maeloa.
Mr Hong is GPS Alliance's CEO and Mr Yong, its agency mentor. 'Top Global is not involved with the day-to-day management at GPS. Our partners run GPS separately and our offices are also in separate locations. So we keep it at arm's length,' says Mr Maeloa when asked if rival developers may not be comfortable with giving marketing and other jobs to GPS, because of its links to Top Global.
GPS Alliance's office is at Jalan Pemimpin near Bishan (Top Global's premises are at Shaw Centre in Scotts Road) and 'we plan to franchise the GPS name to Indonesia, and when we have a presence there, we can do a lot of cross border selling. For example, we can market Singapore properties in Indonesia, or sell Indonesian properties here, or Australian properties in Indonesia'.
Top Global has a 30 per cent stake in the consortium developing a retail/theatre, hotel and residential project on the landmark Capitol site in Singapore.
Chesham Properties, controlled by members of the Kwee family of Pontiac Land Group, and Perennial Real Estate hold 30 and 40 per cent stakes respectively in the consortium.
'(Chesham director) Kwee Liong Seen is my mum's very good friend and approached us on this site,' explains Mr Maeloa.
Mr Maeloa bought a stake of about 20 per cent in Top Global in 2007 but sold it within a year because he could not get control of the company. He remained an executive director.
In early 2010, Madam Sukmawati emerged as a substantial shareholder in the company, taking up a placement offer, which led her to do a general offer for Top Global.
The company also did a rights issue last year. Madam Sukmawati's stake in Top Global today stands at slightly over 50 per cent.
Under the leadership of Madam Sukmawati, who is the company's executive chairman, and Mr Maeloa, Top Global has divested the construction and waterproofing business and decided to focus on three core businesses - property development/investment; hotels; and real estate support services including property consultancy.
For the property business in Singapore, Top Global initially focused on the residential sector, but following the introduction of the Jan 13 property cooling measures, it decided to broaden its focus to include commercial and industrial properties since these segments are not targeted by these measures.
As well, capital values in these segments have not gone up as much as for the residential sector, notes Mr Maeloa.
'It has become more viable to have mixed developments comprising residential and commercial components rather than doing pure-residential projects in Singapore,' he observes.
'Residential property prices have gone up so much...and I think going forward there will be some sort of oversupply in the residential sector, so you have to position yourself as a niche player.'
Equally at ease at Nassim or Chomp Chomp
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
HANO Maeloa is just at ease sipping fine wine in his house at Nassim Road as eating at hawker centres. His favourite hawker food is carrot cake at Chomp Chomp in Serangoon Gardens.
His most expensive wine investment is a Romanee-Conti magnum, which he had bought from a London merchant about 10 years ago for $50,000. All in, he estimates that he could have invested about $20-30 million in his wine collection of about 8,000-10,000 bottles housed in the 2,000-square-foot cellar in the basement of his residence at Nassim Road.
Mr Maeloa, his homemaker wife and their three school-going children, along with his mother, Sukmawati Widjaja (of the family that controls the Sinar Mas group in Indonesia), and his sister live in the bungalow.
The family developed the house on a site of about 40,000 sq ft which Madam Sukma purchased in 2006 from Peter Kwee. The house was designed by local architect Timothy Seow and the interiors were done by Hirsch Bedner Associates, Mr Maeloa says.
Perhaps Mr Maeloa's ease at fitting into both ends of the lifestyle spectrum may have to do with his having spent some of his early years here.
He did his entire primary school education at Catholic High (in Queen Street) followed by a few years at Whitley Secondary School (at Dunearn Road) - before moving to Boston for prep school. He holds a BSc in business administration from the University of Southern California.
Mr Maeloa used to run an IT fund in Los Angeles around the time of the Internet bubble, and when the bubble burst, he returned to Singapore in 2001 and set up a shipping business to coordinate the logistics requirements of the Sinar Mas group.
Around 2007, he sold the shipping business and invested in Top Global in Singapore, but failed to gain control of the company. He soon sold off his interest in Top Global but stayed on as an executive director.
His mother arrived on the scene a few years later, taking up a placement issue by Top Global in early 2010. She later made a general offer and also participated in Top Global's rights issue last year. Her stake is slightly over 50 per cent.
'My passion has always been in property,' declares Mr Maeloa, in an interview with BT on his 42nd birthday. Both Madam Sukma and Mr Maeloa are Singapore citizens now.
As a student of Whitley Secondary School, he excelled in badminton, winning trophies in interschool tournaments. These days, his hobbies include travelling with his family to ski resorts and hot springs in Japan, and touring the US and Europe. 'When I'm overseas, I like to visit places with unique architecture.'
In Singapore, he visits showflats of other developers in his free time. 'I like looking at how people do wonders with just a square space and sometimes small units.' Mr Maeloa is the only son and the eldest of four children of Madam Sukma.
