Here is our story of the day, or week, or month. As we were walking back from the Bollywood class (I tried it for YAW), there was a man in front of our building who I met when he and his family (entourage, friends, etc.) viewed our apartment last month. I did not know Raj, that is his name, has a personal net worth of $1.5 Billion and his real estate assets are over $3 Billion. This officially makes him the wealthiest man we have ever met. Congrats Raj! We wondered who had the very nice black Rolls Royce with a driver standing by.
See, our apartment is up for sale and therefore I occasionally have to give tours, being the homemaker that I am, to potential buyers. We figure most look at it as an investment property. Evidently they have not read my blogs on the noisy neighbor and shoddy construction. Wait until I write about the light bulbs!
I remembered when Raj and his group were here, he was one of the friendliest people to come through. He also mentioned he was going to Los Angeles this year to look at property. Being that I am from L.A., we chatted most of the time he was in the apartment. This was rare for most walk throughs. I mentioned YAW was here working with one of the big Singapore banks. At the time, I thought he was just another average investor. I had no clue to his history.
Today, I saw he remembered me therefore I stopped and introduced YAW. Raj Kumar Hiranandani introduced himself to YAW. As we chatted about him visiting our building again to look at other units, he mentioned he just got back from Europe after looking at the ‘Marriott portfolio’. Since we didn’t know anything about him yet, we didn’t know what it meant. He said he is still planning a trip to LA at the end of October but is spending time now picking up additional properties in Singapore. By now I am thinking “How many properties does this guy have?” There must be something I am missing.
As we were talking, he looked at YAW and remembered she was the one working with the large bank here, calling it by the actual name! He had not met her previously but remembered that part of our conversation from his tour a month before. That was very impressive and really cool. YAW was instantly wondering “who is this guy?”.
Of course, we then parted ways. Once YAW and I got back upstairs, I hopped in the shower and figured YAW was having some water. As soon as I got out, I heard “Come here!” What do you think YAW was doing? Yes, of course she immediately went on Google! Turns out Raj, chairman of the Royal Brothers Group, is the 11th wealthiest man in Singapore. He also owns a few hotels including some Marriotts (now we get it!) and some shopping centers here in the Lion City. I think by now we weren’t super surprised but the fact he took the time to chat with us and remember her banking customer by name was so impressive that we wanted to blog it. He was so down to earth – something you may not believe until you meet him.
In case you are wondering: http://www.forbes.com/profile/raj-kumar/ and http://prestige-singapore.com.sg/2012/06/machismo-royale
For some reason, we don’t think this is true of Donald Trump. Maybe because we have seen him say “You’re fired” too many times.
Happy Saturday. Time to go shopping at Orchard Road. Look out Tods, here we come.