Ho Bee hasn’t clinched a Singapore residential plot in over a decade. That may be a good thing

HO Bee Land has been achieving relatively high return on equity (ROE) of at least 7.5 per cent in eight out of the past 10 years.

This can be credited to the group’s strategy of building up a strong recurring income stream. Ho Bee’s rental income has grown from S$14.4 million in 2012 to S$259.7 million in 2022, largely from its UK and Singapore office assets. The mainboard-listed group developed The Metropolis office project on a site next to Buona Vista MRT station that it clinched in 2010. In London, it owns eight office assets, bought between 2014 and 2022.

The group was a stock market darling from 2006 to 2010, reaping bumper profits from developing homes in the Sentosa Cove waterfront residential district. But it has not acquired any new residential development sites in Singapore since 2008, when it was part of a joint venture that won the last condo development site in Sentosa Cove.