pRoperty billionaire ASOK KUMAR HIRANANDANI's Royal Company is investing about £110 million ($143 million) to develop its Virgin Shop Hotel in London as Singaporean tycoon aims to expand its company's footprint to capitalize on the global travel boom.
Royal Group bought the former Natwest Bank (formerly Westminster Bank) building in Piccadilly, London's Mayfair area for £65 million last month. The Singapore company chairman Hiranandani said it will spend another £45m to convert a 50-suite luxury boutique hotel into a Singapore company's luxury boutique hotel.
Hiranandani said he has been looking for opportunities in London for the past decade, which has attracted the city’s appeal as a travel destination. Government data shows that in the first half of 2024, London tourists reached 10%, reaching 100.4 million, all rising 25% to 20.3 million in 2024. “Tourists in London are growing wildly,” Hiranani said in an interview Forbes Asia.
British construction company Ritchie Design Partners is designing a London hotel, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026. Hiranandani is confident that the hotel can charge guests a fee of £1,000 per night, similar to the room fee in nearby Liz London. In recent years, the city has attracted other Singapore property tycoons. Billionaire Kwek Leng’s urban development project purchased St. Katharine Docks in 2023, while real estate giant Chua Thian Poh’s Ho Bee Land acquired the previous year’s Scarpel Office Skyscraper.
The artist's impression of Casa Mett in 165 rooms.
Provided by Royal Group
Work on the London project has been designated as protection and will begin even when construction of another Royal Group hotel in Singapore is in full swing. The 165-room hotel, known as Casa Mett, will rise on 12,132 square feet (1,127 square meters) of land along Cuscaden Road near the Orchard Road shopping area. The former location of the Ming Arcade shopping mall was acquired by Royal Group for S$172 million (US$129 million) in 2022, setting a record S$3,125 per square foot. “I paid a lot of dollars for the site because freehold land on Orchard Road is rare,” Hilanandani explained. “It would be a good investment.”
Royal Group spent about S$100 million to build the 13-story Casa Mett hotel, which will have a blade-shaped curved glass facade that will rise to a height of 100 meters. Designed by Singapore-based SCDA architects, the hotel features high ceiling rooms with a height of 4.2 meters, sky terraces on the second and eighth floors and a swimming pool bar on the rooftop deck.
Casa Mett, which is scheduled to open in early 2027, will be managed by Dubai-based Sunset Hospitality Group, the operator of restaurants such as Mott 32 and Sushisamba. Hiranandani said he was confident that luxury lifestyle hotels could charge about S$500 per night, similar to the prices of new hotels nearby, such as the version (City Developments) and Artyzen Singapore, developed by Shun Takeans of Casino tycoon Tycoon Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho.
Despite the flood of new hotels in Singapore, Hiranandani believes that once Changi Airport is in 2030, the new terminal can handle 50 million passengers a year, so island countries need more hotel rooms to accommodate the expected inbound travelers. Tourists are expected to grow 12% to 185 million in 2025 after a 21% increase last year, according to Singapore Tourism Commission data.
“Singapore has a very broad potential,” Hilanandani said. Royal Group has been expanding its hotel footprint in Lion City in recent years to capitalize on the travel boom. Earlier this month, it opened Raffles Sentosa Resort, which includes 62 villas. The cost of construction of the resort came from an initial S$180 million budget, following the delays caused by the pandemic, which was S$300 million.
Hiranandani is the co-founder of the former Royal Brothers group, which split in 2011 after a family settlement. He is also a billionaire between him and his older brother Raj Kumar, who runs a separate Royal Holdings and RB Capital with his son Kishin.
Through Royal Group, Hiranandani owns Singapore's preferred assets, including the Royal Group office building in the Sofitel Sentosa Resort and Raffles Place Central Business District. It also owns hotels in Malaysia, such as “Twin Trees” by Hilton Kuala Lumpur. Hiranandani has a net worth of US$1.7 billion, ranking 28th on Singapore's 50 most abundant list published last September.
