Shophouses beckon

SHOPHOUSES are in limited supply and coveted for their character and investment value. Median per square foot value of shophouse land has risen steadily through the years.

In today’s edition of Wealth, Corinne Kerk reports in Spotlight that shophouses’ price resilience reflects the typical investment profile of buyers, who seldom put them up for sale: high net worth individuals, family offices and real estate funds with strong holding power.

Sustainability is also front and centre in this edition of Wealth. At the Helm profiles Vyncke, established 110 years ago to convert biomass fuels into energy, at a time when climate change was nowhere in sight. Vyncke’s proposition is compelling: Their technology converts industries’ wastes into energy, creating a positive loop with cost savings to boot.

And, in Business Family Insights, we profile homegrown waste management firm Wah & Hua whose waste-to-energy facility in Tuas begins operations this year. Growth has been hard-won, but general manager Melissa Tan has yet another ambition – to lift the social stigma from waste management as a career.