Singapore's youngest billionaire RK Kishin is the son of Indian-origin property magnate Raj Kumar Hiranandani. At 36 years of age, the CEO and founder of RB Capital Group ranks among the top 10 billionaires in Singapore.
Recalling his journey to becoming a realty tycoon, Kishin says that he had bought his first apartment at the age of 12. This had worked as a crash course about the real estate business.
"I realised that my interest was actually in real estate by the time I was 18 years old. There was no need to do anything else," Kishin told The Singapore Tatler. "I was really getting to understand the ins and outs of not just the family business, but the larger landscape of real estate and how it worked as an industry. And I wanted to go deeper," he added.
After finding out about his calling, he joined the family business after completing his graduation in 2003. Three years later, the self-acclaimed food enthusiast had some different plans in mind. He wanted to open his own property business and in due course, he sold an apartment gifted to him by his parents to fund his new venture. His parents at that moment were quite shocked but he changed their perception by his work.
The first few years went very fast as he bought a retail podium at Malacca Centre and then picked up 33 Jalan Sultan in Kuala Lumpur, a property which is now known as the HSBC Building. He turned a petrol station on the ground floor of Coronation Shopping Plaza into a retail space, and Satnam House and Amar Raj House on High Street into the current EFG Bank Building.
According to Kishin, it was fun as he was passionate about developing something from scratch and creating a positioning for real estate that could fill a gap in that specific marketplace. It didn't matter to him whether the development was small or big as long as it worked according to the plans.
In 2010, Kishin submitted the winning bid for a government land site in Clarke Quay, where Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay stands today. In 2012, he clinched another government land site in Little India which now houses the Farrer Square development comprising Park Hotel Farrer Park and Farrer Square Medical Centre.
After creating a name in the market, Kishin started working with his father. Their first joint collaboration was the Robertson Quay project. He did not do much in 2018 as he was assessing the future of the market and planning for 2019.
According to Kishin, a businessman needs to have a clear vision about the future. The CEO and founder of RB Capital has many things to offer and many milestones to achieve in the coming days.
