Potential buyer shortlisted amid strong interest for Cuscaden Peak’s The Clementi Mall

[SINGAPORE] An expression of interest exercise for the sale of The Clementi Mall is said to have garnered strong interest, with 12 offers received at the initial close of submissions on Oct 3.

Out of these, eight parties were shortlisted by the mall’s owner, Cuscaden Peak Investments, to sharpen their pencils and submit their highest offer at the second closing on Oct 17.

Following this, an entity linked to Zhao Zhichao, who is behind The Elegant Group, is understood to be in exclusive due diligence with a view to buying the five-storey mall next to Clementi MRT station.

Word on the street is that the pricing has exceeded the indicative guide price of around S$750 million; the indicative guide price translates to S$3,831 per square foot (psf) on the net lettable area of about 195,772 sq ft and a net yield of 4.5 per cent.

The Clementi Mall is on a site with a 99-year leasehold tenure that started on Aug 31, 2010, leaving a balance term of about 84 years. Market watchers noted that it is a stone’s throw from The Elegant Group’s Grantral Mall@Clementi, formerly known as CityVibe.

Given that the two properties are linked by a covered walkway, there is potential for drawing more synergies between the two malls to boost tenant sales and rental income.

The Elegant Group also owns Grantral Mall@Macpherson and Changi City Point mall.

It has also been reported to be linked to the S$375 million purchase of UOL Group’s Kinex, a retail mall in Tanjong Katong Road, announced in September.

Kinex is across the road from Tanjong Katong Complex; in June, the Singapore Land Authority awarded the tender for the redevelopment of the landmark property to The Elegant Group’s Jun Jie Development on a 30-year lease tenure for S$90 million.

The Business Times reported in early August that Cuscaden Peak Investments, which owns The Clementi Mall, had appointed Cushman & Wakefield and Savills to market the suburban mid-market mall.

The 12 parties that participated in the first closing are said to have included real estate investment trusts (Reits), other property funds, family offices and developers.

The property, which has a five-storey retail podium and a basement level, has around 160 shops.

Cuscaden Peak Investments is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cuscaden Peak, a consortium made up of Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL), CapitaLand’s CLA Real Estate Holdings and a Mapletree Investments unit which took over Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) in 2022.

The takeover also resulted in Cuscaden Peak Investments acquiring assets – including The Clementi Mall – held by SPH Reit, which was renamed Paragon Reit. HPL has since exited the consortium, while Paragon Reit was privatised in April and delisted in June.

Since 2023, the group has sold a string of assets it acquired from the SPH takeover. These include three freehold Nassim Road bungalows for a total of S$206.7 million, a student housing portfolio of properties in the UK and Germany worth £1 billion (S$1.7 billion), and The Seletar Mall for S$550 million.

The Elegant Group has made several property acquisitions over the years.

In 2017, it purchased the eight-storey Citimac Industrial Complex, a freehold building near Tai Seng MRT station, for S$430.1 million.

The complex was redeveloped into Grantral Mall @ Macpherson/Grantral Complex, a mixed-use development on a 12,986.8 square metre site. Under the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Draft Master Plan 2025, the plot is zoned Business 1-White with a gross plot ratio of 3.5.

The developer further expanded its portfolio in Singapore with its purchase of Changi City Point mall from Frasers Centrepoint Trust in 2023 for S$338 million, according to a Mingtiandi report.

The total consideration represented a 4 per cent premium to the mall’s S$325 million valuation as at Jul 31, 2023, and would generate an estimated net gain of S$10.9 million post-deal.

The Elegant Group was said to have acquired Changi City Point at a yield of 4.3 per cent on a net property income basis.

In June 2025, the group’s Jun Jie Development placed the top bid of S$90 million for a state tender to redevelop Tanjong Katong Complex in the Geylang Serai Cultural Belt.

Most recently, Kinex Times Square and Xiaohong Property Management – entities linked to The Elegant Group – acquired Kinex mall for S$375 million from UOL Group.

Located at 11 Tanjong Katong Road, the property consists of all the mall’s commercial strata lots, housed in a three-storey retail podium and a basement level. It has a total net lettable area of 204,223 sq ft.