Billionaire Chua Thian Poh’s Ho Bee Land deepens Australian investment with $220 million purchase of Queensland parcel

Hi Bijenland– controlled by a Singaporean billionaire Chua Thian Poh– is buying a property in Queensland for A$318.5 million ($220 million), doubling its investments in Australia amid the housing boom Down Under.

The Singapore-based real estate company said in a statement that it could develop as many as 1,400 residential lots, along with a mix of 64 commercial and industrial properties, on the 181.4 hectare (1.8 million square meter) parcel, located in the city of Moreton Bay, north of Greater Brisbane in southeast Queensland.

Ho Bee Land said the site is part of a “key growth corridor” with direct access to the Bruce Highway – a major artery linking Brisbane to Cairns – and close to established employment, residential and logistics precincts. The company’s shares rose 1.3% in Monday afternoon trading in Singapore.

The property is Ho Bee Land’s latest acquisition in Australia, where it bought five sites for A$96.6 million last November and is expected to deliver 1,079 residential plots. Three of the sites are in Queensland, while the other two are in the southeastern state of Victoria.

Ho Bee Land has ramped up its presence in Australia, where national average house prices set a new record of A$1.3 million last year, as rising migration fueled population growth in the country, according to property portal Domain Australia.

Chua – a high school dropout who started making hooks and nails for the logging industry – has $1.5 billion real-time net worthmaking him one of Singapore’s richest tycoons. He founded Ho Bee Land in 1987, which became known for building luxury apartments in Singapore’s island resort Sentosa. The company now has more than $7 billion in assets and 35 projects in four countries. The diversified portfolio includes iconic office buildings in London and Munich.