Ong Beng Seng’s HPL looks to cut stakes in Forum mall, voco Orchard hotel: sources
[SINGAPORE] The property firm of embattled billionaire Ong Beng Seng is looking to reduce its stakes in two marquee assets along Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping strip, according to people familiar with the matter.
Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL) is in talks to sell majority stakes in Forum The Shopping Mall, as well as the voco Orchard hotel, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters.
The firm is seeking a deal that would value the two adjacent assets for at least S$2 billion, they added.
A spokesperson for Singapore-listed HPL declined to comment. The firm has interests in more than 40 hotels across the globe including the Four Seasons in Singapore, as well as resorts in the Maldives.
Shares of the firm were halted Tuesday afternoon (Jul 29), after rising about 6.3 per cent earlier to reach the highest since July 2007. That brings the company’s stock gains to over 55 per cent this year, more than four times the increase in the benchmark Straits Times Index.
In a late night announcement, HPL referred to the minutes of its last annual general meeting in April, in which it disclosed that several interested parties had approached it to discuss the redevelopment of the properties, and a joint venture in relation to the properties was a possibility.
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The viability of redeveloping these properties with interested parties is still being explored, it said on Tuesday, and added: “There is no certainty that any discussions with these interested parties will result in any transaction.”
It also asked for the trading halt to be lifted on Jul 30.
Ong, 79, has been in the spotlight in the last couple of years after being implicated in a scandal that led to the imprisonment of former transport minister S Iswaran in Singapore.
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Ong has indicated that he plans to plead guilty on Aug 4 after being charged last year for abetting Iswaran over two flights and a night’s stay at the Four Seasons in Doha. It is unclear whether the case has any relation to the firm’s planned asset sales.
HPL won provisional permission from authorities in August 2023 to redevelop the two sites, along with its company headquarters, HPL House. That was part of a government plan to rejuvenate the Orchard Road shopping district by allowing developers to seek more space or change of use for older buildings.
The company intends to keep its ownership of HPL House under the potential sale, the people said. It said earlier this year in its annual report that redevelopment plans are “being refined for submission to the relevant authorities”.
In April, Ong relinquished his decades-long tenure as managing director of HPL. Two long-time executives replaced him, after he cited a desire to devote more time to his medical issues. But he continues to provide “strategic oversight and direction” to the firm.
Together with his wife Christina, the Malaysian tycoon controls HPL with a roughly 60 per cent stake. The next largest shareholder is Hong Kong billionaire Peter Woo.
Forum The Shopping Mall is valued at about S$990 million, group executive director Christopher Lim said at the company’s annual meeting in April. That estimate does not account for the redevelopment. He declined to comment on the value of the voco, formerly the Hilton Singapore, saying the company did not have a valuation for it.
HPL is set to gain full ownership in August of the Concorde, an S$821 million shopping mall and hotel complex on Orchard Road, after buying out minority stakes it did not own.
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