Daughter of Chinese Tycoon Bought $84m GCB in Bin Tong Park

The daughter of a China-born steel-and-nickel magnate Xiang Guangda is the owner of a large brand-new bungalow in the Bin Tong Park Good Class Bungalow (GCB) area in Singapore. 

The mansion sits on a huge land size of 28,111 sqft, almost double the minimum requirement for a GCB plot size. The bungalow has a total built-up space of 18,000 sqft with a basement, six bedrooms, a 19-metre pool, living, dining and entertainment spaces. Other features include a when the couple began a small wine cellar, a theatre and a gym.

Xiang Yangyang, who is in her mid-thirties, bought the landed property from Sitin Nibal, a former hedge fund manager who is involved in the software and applications development business. 

Xiang Yangyang and her mother He Xiuqin, are Singapore Citizens and are understood to be based here. 

Xiang Guangda and He Xiuqin are the founders of the privately held Tsingshan Holding Group, one of the largest stainless steel and nickel producer globally. 

The husband and wife couple started the business in the late 1980s, when the couple began a small business that made car doors and windows in Wenzhou with about US$100,000 capital raised from family and friends. 

In 1992, the business ventured into the manufacturing of stainless steel, and six years later, was renamed Tsingshan, according to news articles on the Internet.

The company grew rapidly, with a focus to bring down stainless steel manufacturing costs. During the 2000s, Tsingshan started to invest in nickel mines in Indonesia.

The group set up nickel and stainless steel manufacturing complexes in Sulawesi.

Nickel is a key component in the production of stainless steel, and this strategy helped Tsingshan to further reduce the production cost of stainless steel. Tsingshan also set up factories in India and Zimbabwe. It is also the biggest shareholder in Australian company Nickel Industries.

Xiang Guangda and Tsingshan had generally kept a low profile despite the group’s expansion over the years.

However, they were thrust into the limelight in 2022 when a big bet the group made that nickel prices would fall, turned out to be wrong.

Tsingshan incurred about a USS1 billion loss from that trade but emerged relatively unscathed from the episode.

In December 2023, Tsingshan’s lithium-ion battery manufacturing unit, REPT Battero Energy, was floated on the Hong Kong Stock Ex-change.

Xiang Yangyang, who is listed as a non-executive director of the group in the listing prospectus, attended the listing ceremony.

Bungalows in the 39 gazetted GCB Areas are the most prestigious form of landed housing in Singa-pore, with strict planning conditions to preserve their exclusivity and low rise character. Among other things, a minimum plot size of 1,400 square metres or 15,070 sq ft is stipulated as the planning norm for newly created bungalows in GCB Areas.

With around only 2,700 such properties on the island, there is thus “rarity value” to owning one of these homes.

One generally has to be a Singapore citizen to be allowed to buy a landed property in a GCB Area. For foreigners buying property in Singapore, please refer to this guide for more information.

(Source: The Business Times)