SINGAPORE: A man who considers himself part of the “old-money” wealthy took to social media to explain that the truly rich don’t flaunt their assets.
In an anonymous post to popular confessions page SGWhispers, the man said that his grandparents were landowners in Selangor. His father sold everything there and moved to Singapore when his grandparents died. He then invested in commercial buildings, mostly around Robertson Quay. “My mom and dad are Ivy League educated (Columbia) and my sister and I also went to Columbia (undergrad and grad school). I worked for McKinsey in New York for 3 years, earned an MBA, and I now run the family business. My sister has a law degree and she’s working for Biglaw in NYC”, the man wrote.
He explained that he and his family have never spent more than $1000 on a meal and said that growing up, they ate at hawker centres all the time.
Earlier this year, the national British daily The Telegraph said Singapore had become a “playground for Chinese ultra-rich” who are avoiding a crackdown on the well-heeled.
However, their lavish spending habits are wreaking havoc on Singapore’s real estate market, sending prices soaring, The Telegraph added.
The piece quoted Mr Pearce Cheng, chief executive of relocation services company AIMS, as saying, “You cannot imagine the way they spend money. It’s crazy.”
In another anecdote, a family moved out of a house that they had been renting for £10,000 monthly (SGD16,000) because the rental rate was increased to £26,000 (SGD41,700).
But in a week, the house was snapped up by a wealthy Chinese family.
A move to Singapore is not a new phenomenon for China’s richest, due to the country’s reputation as a tax haven, but a fresh wave began to be observed toward the end of last year, due to President Xi Jinping‘s crackdowns as well as Covid-19 shutdowns.
China to see ‘exodus of wealth’ to Singapore after Xi Jinping’s crackdowns, Covid shutdowns