KUALA LUMPUR - Flamboyant billionaire Low Taek Jho snapped up two high-end apartments in Singapore including a triplex penthouse for S$54 million (RM145.2 million) to add to his luxury portfolio that features a “high rise lair” in Hong Kong, the Business Times reported today.
Citing transaction records involving Singapore-based Angullia Park Ltd, a shell company that it said was linked to the tycoon implicated in the 1 Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) controversy, the business paper said Low purchased both apartments back in 2013.
The first of Low’s purchases was one of the two available triplex penthouses at the posh TwentyOne Anguilla Park for around S$43 million; the other unit is still being held by the developer, China Sonangol Land.
The penthouse is a reported 7,718-sqft, costing the billionaire known as Jho Low a heady S$5,560 for every square foot of the property.
Low then added another smaller 2,260-sqft apartment in the same development to his portfolio, paying S$11.5 million for the three-bedroom unit.
The ultra-low density complex is home to expatriates, with Low’s neighbours including a Monaco family, an Australian-turned Singaporean, and Indonesians.
In a New York Times exposé last year, Low was reported to have bought a Manhattan, New York penthouse for US$24 million (RM85.0 million), which he then resold to the stepson of the Malaysian prime minister for over US$30 million.
He also purchased a mansion in Beverly Hills, California for US$17.5 million that he also sold to the same person and is now valued at US$39 million.
Jho Low
Jho Low remains in the spotlight over alleged links to 1MDB whose debts prompted critics to demand Putrajaya explain how the state-owned firm managed to amass a reported RM42 billion in liabilities over a span of several years.
Umno Youth and its leaders are blaming Low for the financial woes of 1MDB and demanded that he be investigated as part of the ongoing audit of the firm.
Low has repeatedly denied any association with 1MDB, but continues to be linked to the state-owned firm due to his role in the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA).
1MDB was incorporated in 2009, after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced the decision to turn the TIA state fund into a federal agency.
Since then, the fund has been dogged by negative publicity over its finances and debt, and most recently cash flow problems that saw it struggle to meet a RM2 billion loan payment.
Najib last month ordered the Auditor-General and Public Accounts Committee to investigate 1MDB, amid growing demands for explanations over the firm’s allegedly opaque investment decisions and for amassing a reported RM42 billion debt pile. - Malay Mail
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