Thursday, June 18, 2009

Jet Li Buys $20m Bungalow

Source : The Straits Times, June 17, 2009

ACTION star Jet Li and his wife, Nina, have bought a coveted good class bungalow (GCB) on Binjai Rise for $19.8 million last month, The Business Times (BT) reported on Wednesday.

Jet Li has reportedly bought a coveted good class bungalow on Binjai Rise for $19.8 million last month. -- PHOTO: AP

The bungalow, in the Bukit Timah area, works out to cost $871 per square foot based on the freehold land area of 22,723 square feet, said The BT report.

GCBs, with their stringent planning requirements, are the creme de la creme of Singapore's housing market. There are only about 2,400 such bungalows in Singapore.

The move is seen as a sign that Li is sinking deeper roots in Singapore, after he announced plans to set up a base in Singapore for his charity and disaster-relief group One Foundation.

The Jet Li One Foundation Singapore was registered in June 2008 and the Beijing-born Li is understood to have taken up Singapore citizenship, following in the footsteps of fellow China-born superstar Gong Li, who became a Singapore citizen last November.

According to BT, Mr Li told a Forbes Global CEO Conference here in September last year that Singapore offers the right conditions for grooming future NGO leaders.

Earlier media reports also said that Mr Li moved his two daughters and wife to Singapore in 2007 for his children's education.

Mr Li led a life of hardship as a child (his father died when he was two) but he persevered to emerge as China's overall national wushu champion for five consecutive years in the 1970s. He began his acting career in the early 1980s, starting with Shaolin Temple and today has about 40 movies under his belt.

He became a US citizen in the 1980s.

When contacted by BT, a spokeswoman for Singapore's Immigration and Checkpoints Authority declined to confirm if Mr Li is now a Singapore citizen, saying 'due to reasons of confidentiality, the ICA will not discuss individual cases publicly'.

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