Background
His wife, Madam Lim Wan Looi. She also holds a substantial stake in the company. They have a daughter.
His wife, Madam Lim Wan Looi. She also holds a substantial stake in the company. They have a daughter.
In the 1990s, he saw the potential for budget hotels in Singapore to serve backpackers and young travellers.
Koh Wee Meng gave real estate a try in 1992. He found a 5,000- square-foot plot of land for $490,000. Then he went to a bank for a loan but was told he didn't have the experience or education to be successful. He was eventually given a loan of $310,000 and paid for the rest with proceeds from selling his home the previous year when he moved in with his parents. Koh Wee Meng built a bungalow on the land and flipped it for $1.2 million within a year. In 1996, he built the first Fragrance Hotel in Geylang Lorong 20 and named it Ruby,a nod to the many years spent helping out with his family’s jewellery business. Fragrance’s next four hotels in Geylang were named Crystal, Emerald, Pearl and Sapphire.Mr Koh was soon crowned Geylang King by the media for building 11 small-scale residential projects in the area between 1994 and 2004.
In 2005, the business went public on the Singapore Stock Exchange.