And for good reason, too. The city-state’s construction sector, once battered by Covid-19 lockdowns, labour shortages and surging costs, is now entering a new upcycle, with major contracts awarded for housing and infrastructure projects.
To ease resale prices, some 55,000 build-to-order (BTO) flats will be launched between now and 2027. The Cross Island MRT Line, Tuas Mega Port, Jurong Lake District, Changi Airport’s Terminal 5 (T5), North-South Corridor, and other multi-billion-dollar, multi-year infrastructure projects will also help keep things busy. The latest official estimate of construction demand this year is between $47 billion and $53 billion, nearly double the $21 billion trough posted during the 2020 pandemic.
To capture these opportunities, Wee Hur, in May, established a $500 million multicurrency medium-term note (MTN) programme. The programme was “timely” because its proceeds from the divestment of its Australian purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) portfolio to Greystar, which resulted in a gain of A$355.4 million, or $319.8 million, were all in Australian dollars. The PBSA portfolio was a JV with GIC, which holds a 49.9% stake.
“We actually lack Singapore dollars as a working currency,” says Goh Wee Ping, CEO of Wee Hur Capital and chief investment officer of Wee Hur Holdings, in an interview with The Edge Singapore.
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The macro backdrop is also favourable at the moment, with plenty of liquidity thanks to interest in Singapore dollar (SGD)-denominated products, which have driven the Singapore overnight rate average (Sora) to an all-time low. “There’s a really good, comfortable window of opportunity, you know, for us to optimise Wee Hur’s capital stack. Because right now, our debt to equity is quite low,” Goh says.
He declines to say exactly what the MTN will be used for, other than that Wee Hur, having caught recent investors’ attention at how it was able to cash out from one of its student dormitories, is now moving into an “exciting new phase”, where “we look at re-entering the Singapore market.”
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Goh Wee Ping, CEO of Wee Hur Capital and chief investment officer of Wee Hur Holdings. Photo: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore
A return to roots
The renewed focus on Singapore is Wee Hur’s homecoming of sorts, although of course, the company was never away. Wee Hur was co-founded 45 years ago as a construction business by Goh’s father, executive chairman and managing director, Goh Yeow Lian, with his siblings and in-laws in 1980. For nearly three decades, it was primarily focused on construction before expanding into familiar and adjacent areas of property investment and development. Unlike many other contractors, Wee Hur has even expanded into dormitories for both workers and students. Under Goh’s leadership as CIO, the company has also ventured into fund management and alternative investments.
Some of its construction projects include the former mall JCube; the Singapore campus of Insead, the French business school; Sengkang Community Hub, Nexus@One North and DBS Asia Hub. The company undertook extensive renovation and restoration work on buildings of historical value, such as The Arts House, The Scarlet Singapore, and the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall.
This experience is invaluable, given that the construction sector is one where businesses cannot “cheat” or take shortcuts and where experience counts, says Goh. To him, Wee Hur’s advantage is to have “experienced generals” who each have more than 20 years of experience under their belts. “Whatever they did over the past three years, other than trying to recover from the pandemic — which only just started to recover at the end of last year — was to prepare for the next phase.”
This next phase is already starting. On May 19, Wee Hur announced that it was awarded two HDB contracts worth $439.4 million, bringing its construction order book to $629 million as of the end of June. Goh is confident that over the next six to nine months, another two or three projects can be secured, thereby bringing the order book to around $1 billion. For Wee Hur, there is not much difference in taking HDB projects of about $100 million to $400 million. “Other than the scale, the method, the process, and the handing over, is the same.”
Building better margins
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Besides public housing, Wee Hur is keen to build a stronger track record in building healthcare developments, seen as a structural growth segment given Singapore’s ageing population. However, Goh is realistic enough to know there are certain projects where Wee Hur will not be able to compete effectively. The multi-billion-dollar T5 and the expansion of two integrated resorts (IRs) are “too big and too complex”. Instead, Wee Hur’s sweet spot is HDB projects that are within $400 million to $500 million, which the company has the “capacity and skillset” for, says Goh.
For all the opportunities ahead, Wee Hur is clear about one thing: it will not chase projects at any cost. It is steering clear of the industry’s previous habit of “suicide bids”, which were common just one to two cycles ago. These bids are aptly named due to contractors taking on projects at negative or razor-thin margins just to win tenders. Goh says such practices have stopped, as besides price, quality is another aspect used in tender evaluations.
As such, the industry, at least for those with the capabilities to deliver better quality products, will see better days. Contracts the size of Wee Hur should reasonably aim for gross profit of between 8% and 10%.
The Covid-era projects are also “finished and done”, with whatever losses incurred already provided for. Moving forward, Goh says the industry has reached a new norm of higher construction costs. For example, private apartments used to cost between $250 psf and $300 psf to build. The cost is now $450 psf, easily, depending on the building specifications, which are then passed down to the developers, who in turn sell to homeowners at higher prices. Costs are also unlikely to return to previous levels, he adds.
Market observers have described the local construction sector as relatively insulated from the trade war rocking other quarters of the economy, such as manufacturing. Nonetheless, Goh is keeping a close eye on ongoing negotiations between the US and other economies. “On the ground, things are still moving on as per normal.”
During and following the pandemic, the industry faced higher costs for concrete and steel. Now, if caught on the wrong side of such price movements, the project owners, especially the government agencies, will allow some variations. “It’s very fair, I feel,” he says.
The cost of workers, another common concern, won’t affect Wee Hur as much, because as the main contractor, its direct workforce is relatively small. However, the sub-contractors, which must deal with rising worker accommodation and salaries, will see costs go up, which will naturally be reflected in higher tender prices.
In that case, margins will need to increase from the previous average of 3% to 5%. “All these things will add up, and in the end, it’s whether the developer wants to go ahead with the project or not.”
Dormitory play
To an extent, Wee Hur, which develops, owns and manages workers’ dormitories in Singapore, is seeing increasing demand, not just from construction but also from the booming marine industry.
According to a Sept 8 report by property consultancy Knight Frank and the Dormitory Association of Singapore, worker dormitories in Singapore were operating at near full occupancy in 1H2025. Occupancy rates vary across different zones, but the variance is relatively tight, ranging from 97.2% to 99.7%. Demand pressure has eased over the last six months, as indicated by a shorter wait list.
Meanwhile, rental rates have increased significantly. From the 1H2019 pre-pandemic rate of $270 per bed per month, monthly rents were up 81.5% to $490 per bed per month in 1H2025 ended June. Compared to the preceding 2H2024, it was up 6.5%.
Wee Hur’s 15,744-bed Tuas View dormitory is seeing “stable rates” at around $470 to $480 per month, says Goh. Its next dormitory, Pioneer Lodge PBWA, will accommodate up to 10,500 workers. The first phase entered business in April, catering to 3,088 workers. The second phase, to begin in October, can accommodate another 7,412 workers.
Pioneer Lodge purpose-built workers’ accommodation(PBWA), located at Soon Lee Road in Jurong West, is “much better” located compared to its Tuas View dormitory, which is in Tuas South. Another factor in Wee Hur’s favour is the new rules, where companies now have to find accommodation for their workers before bringing them into the country, which gives Wee Hur better visibility on demand projection.
Awareness vs price targets
For a decade or so, Wee Hur’s share price has traded at around 20 cents. That changed in a big way last October, after Australian media reported that together with co-investor GIC, Wee Hur was in exclusive talks with Greystar to divest seven student accommodation assets held via a fund. The A$1.6 billion deal — a “pretty decent price”, quips Goh — was announced eventually on Dec 16, and Wee Hur’s share price continued its steady climb to close at 76 cents on Sept 16, 2024, up 84.5% year-to-date, valuing the company at $715 million.
Wee Hur has clearly attracted growing attention from the investment community. If analysts from CGS International (CGSI) and PhillipCapital are correct, Wee Hur’s share price has further upside from here. Natalie Ong and Lim Siew Khee of CGS International, who have a target price of 91 cents for this counter, describe Wee Hur as a beneficiary of the construction upcycle and demand for its student and workers’ accommodation assets. In their initiation report dated August 5, the analysts identify several positives, including its $700 million order book, which is expected to increase its construction revenue by 7% in FY2026. The analysts also estimate that another $300 million worth of new orders will be won in the 2HFY2025 to FY2026 period. At the same time, Wee Hur’s workers’ dormitory revenue is tipped to grow by 14% and 55% y-o-y in FY2025 and FY2026 as the opening of its Pioneer Lodge will lift its bed inventory by 40% to 26,000.
In his Aug 25 note, PhillipCapital’s Yik Ban Chong, observing “multiple cylinders”, raised his target price for this stock from 55 cents to 90 cents after he increased his FY2025 revenue projection by 17% to incorporate property development revenue.
In an unrated report dated July 21, DBS Group Research’s Geraldine Wong and Derek Tan highlight Wee Hur’s strong investment war chest, PBWA growth and robust construction outlook. Wong and Tan estimate Wee Hur’s fair value to be at 80 cents, based on their sum-of-the-parts (SOTP) valuation of 89 cents.
To Goh, the price targets are not as important as awareness. “The objective was to have more coverage, more data points … Now, I think I can see the trading volume is there. The price can go up and down, prices will always go up and down, but at least you know there’s sufficient good trading volume, and that’s generally good for all the shareholders,” he says.
‘Not AUM gatherers’
When the sale of the student accommodation was announced last December, the company described the deal as the “culmination of a decade-long journey” following a venture into “an uncharted asset class”. Goh recalls that the move into Australia came about after the money it had set aside to pay for Thomson View’s en bloc sale with its JV partner, Lucrum Capital, was aborted. Wee Hur found itself in an interesting position of wondering what to do next. The sale was supposed to happen for $590 million.
Wee Hur remains invested in the student accommodation market in Australia. It retains a 13% stake in the first fund, and its second fund holds a 409-bed asset in Sydney worth A$226 million. A third fund, Wee Hur PBSA Fund III, is in the works for a new 708-bed PBSA development at Grenfell Street, Adelaide.
At this point, Wee Hur remains on the lookout for more acquisitions of accommodation assets Down Under. However, compared to more than a decade ago, Goh is bracing for more competition, likely from deeper-pocket institutional investors. Perhaps one way to manage is to bulk up and attract more external funding from other investors.
Goh, who looks after the fund management arm Wee Hur Capital, says he is not overly obsessed with assets under management (AUM), which is now reduced since the divestment of the first fund. “We are not AUM gatherers. We don’t just raise money and then buy stuff and just try to keep growing so you can keep growing your fees,” says Goh. “We don’t actually have the pressure to do that.”
For now, there is no regular pool of co-investors for its fund business, but Wee Hur has proven its capabilities to investors of the first fund, notably GIC. Ultimately, Goh believes that the key to this business is to put Wee Hur’s own money to work and show a “huge alignment” with investors who are to invest in the same projects. “I need to make sure our money makes smart money, too. I think that gives a lot of comfort to people who join us,” he adds.
Alternative investments; focus on ROE
In addition to its existing businesses, Wee Hur has established its alternative investments arm named KK39, which focuses on venture capital, private equity, and private credit investments. Instead of driving returns immediately, the activities of KK39 are to help Wee Hur suss out new ventures and opportunities around the corner. “We use it to act like a radar [for us] to be nimbler and at the front, helping to understand, to make sense of the complex nature of today’s world,” says Goh.
So far, the KK39 team has put its feelers out there to gain broader perspectives from travelling, and keep its eyes and ears open for strategies, as well as bring ideas which may have synergies with its existing businesses. As at the time of our interview, Wee Hur has deployed about $30 million across several projects, or about 5% of its total net asset value (NAV). “We really just take small bets here and there, so that we have a good chance of understanding, [and] how can we continue to grow the business as a whole, where are the opportunities that we can go to.”
“We started doing this a couple of years back on an even smaller scale just to see what this could mean to us,” he adds. “And as we did a bit more, we thought to really formalise it as a core before it gets too big.”
So far, Wee Hur has not seen any returns or made any exits as yet. These investments are “quite illiquid” and may take some time, maybe in two to three years, to come back. “But to be honest, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to this yet, because it’s just within the group. You know, it’s still a very small baby,” says Goh.
As these new ventures may or may not come to fruition, what will clearly drive Wee Hur over the near to medium term is the pick-up in construction. The way Goh sees it, the industry itself is also evolving with the adoption of technology, especially as more next-generation family members become more active, such as building up a digital knowledge base and minimising the stacks of physical delivery orders that pile up over time. “All these are small opportunities for us just to be a little bit more efficient, productive, and eventually make information and decision-making a bit more real-time,” he says.
Wee Hur is also keen to take on more local development projects, such as participating in government land sales. Rounds of cooling measures have been applied, but private residential activity remains buoyant. Despite this, Goh is careful to watch his sums and ensure that if Wee Hur does bid, it will be for sites with a clear prospect of meeting a certain level of returns, just as the company does with its other businesses.
“I want to tell people, on a bad year, we’re like 8% to 10% at worst from a ROE (return on equity) point of view. On a good year, we can achieve ROE in the mid-teens,” says Goh. “If a bank can commit an ROE of 15% to 16%, I don’t see why someone like us can’t try to achieve that. But it’s going to take time, as we continue our transformation journey, and really figure out what is the best what is the best way to achieve what we want,” he adds.
