Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio has been revealed to have joined the ranks of billionaires snapping up multimillion-dollar shophouses in Singapore.
Ray Dalio announced in 2020 that he had opened a family office in Singapore to run his investments and philanthropy in the region.
The family office is said to have purchased two shophouses on 44 and 46 Club Street in 2021 for roughly $S25.5 million ($28.6 million), according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal.
Family offices – private wealth managers set up for rich individuals – have exploded in Singapore, from a handful in 2018 to about 1400 in 2023.
They have invested in Singapore real estate, with shophouses a popular choice. The properties sometimes stand empty or are used as offices, residential buildings or business premises.
In 2021, The Straits Times reported that Arcc Holdings and its chief executive Tony Chen sold the two 999-year leasehold shophouses for a total of S$25.5 million, or S$3,935 per square foot. The buyer was reportedly a foreign-based family office.
In February, the wife of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Zhang Ying, was reported by The Business Times to have bought three adjoining shophouses on Duxton Road in the Tanjong Pagar area for about S$45 million to S$50 million. She is a Singapore citizen.
Ray Dalio is the chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, whose portfolio includes the likes of Meta, Alphabet, and PDD Holdings. In 2022, the firm expanded its operations in Asia by opening an office in Singapore after receiving a fund management license from the local regulator.
Singapore is home to nearly 60 per cent of family offices in the Asia-Pacific, according to KPMG. The family office of Google co-founder Sergey Brin has also set up a branch in Singapore, alongside many rich Chinese families.
There are about 6700 shop houses with conservation status in Singapore. The buildings, whose design was introduced by Chinese immigrants in the 1800s, doubled as the business premises and living accommodations of early merchants in the former colonial outpost.
Sales of shophouses hit a record S$1.9 billion in 2021 with the average price of a property rising from a range of S$5 million to S$8 million to S$15 million to S$20 million over the past decade, according to real estate consultancy Knight Frank.
The consultancy said the doubling of the property stamp duty for foreigners to 60 per cent last year on residential purchases fuelled interest in commercial shophouses among family offices, since the properties can serve as part of their assets and as an office.
It projects the sales volume of shophouses to be between S$1.1 billion and S$1.2 billion for the rest of 2024.