Hotel Magnate Adds Luxury Sheen To Singapore Portfolio

This story is part of Forbes' coverage of Singapore's Richest 2026. See the full list here.

Hospitality and property billionaire Koh Wee Meng is expanding his privately held Fragrance Group on its home turf with new hotels managed by France's Accor. That includes the Hotel Waterloo Singapore-Handwritten Collection, a four-star, 502-room city center property opened in January, and a new 808-room Movenpick Singapore set to open early next year in the central business district. The latter, which marks Koh's first five-star hotel in the city-state, will include 46 serviced apartments under the Movenpick Living brand. Slated for launch in December 2027 is a 369-room upscale hotel in Katong in eastern Singapore that has yet to be branded.

"I have been fortunate in the past decade to build and own luxury hotels [overseas]," says Koh, whose wealth is up slightly to $2.2 billion, adding that he will "continue to do so if good opportunities arise." He cites The Municipal Hotel & Spa Liverpool MGallery in the U.K. and the Movenpick Hotel Melbourne on Spencer in Australia as examples. Koh broke away from his family's jewelry business and got into property development and hospitality in the mid-1990s in Singapore's Geylang district with budget chain Fragrance Hotels. Subsequently, he entered the mid-tier segment and expanded into Australia and the U.K., where he commenced his five-star forays.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com