Warburg Pincus Exec Buys Singapore Mansion for $18M

An executive at New York-based private equity firm Warburg Pincus is the new owner of an $18 million mansion in Singapore.

Saurabh Agarwal, a Singapore-based managing director and head of Southeast Asia private equity at the company, is buying an 8,989-square-foot estate for $18 million, or S$23.9 million, Bloomberg reported. The property being sold is co-owned by Loi Pok Yen, former CEO of logistics services company CWT.

The purchase includes nearly 9,000 square feet of land in Jalan Pelangi, including the house that sits on the land. The property is near the Vietnamese embassy and the Holland Village neighborhood, home to many expatriates and young Singaporeans.

The home is in one of Singapore’s 39 “Good Class Bungalow” areas, the only parts of the island country that are especially designated for these types of mansions. Locals largely own the homes in these enclaves, which are believed to be some of the most expensive residential real estate in Singapore.

Agarwal, who also acts as the CEO of Warburg Pincus’ Singapore unit, is a citizen of Singapore, having joined the company in 2009 and moving to the small Southeast Asian country in 2016.

Singapore’s real estate market, thanks to a period of lower interest rates and competitively priced new developments, has seen increased buyer confidence, according to Global Property Guide. Foreign demand has petered out, however, likely due to heightened economic uncertainty, so the market probably won’t see sharp hikes in sales prices and rents in the coming months.

The luxury end of the non-landed private residential market in Singapore saw a slight uptick in prices at the start of this year compared to last year. In the first quarter, prices in the high-end segment of the market increased 0.6 percent quarter over quarter to $1,938 per square foot, per Savills data. The segment recorded a growth of 0.7 percent year over year. Overall, the number of units sold at the beginning of the year totaled 7,261, marking a 71.7 percent increase from the year prior.

— Chris Malone Méndez