Strawberry Star Group's founder Santhosh Gowda has regularly spent half his time in Singapore and half his time in London. The chairman likes to call Singapore his home, and the company's headquarters are there.
Strawberry Star first opened its office in Singapore in March 2015. It started as a London real estate agency. However, Gowda’s ambition was to create “an integrated, end-to-end services platform” for international investors, primarily from Asia and the Middle East, to invest in the UK.
Initially, there was confusion about Strawberry Star’s business, says Gowda. “People would ask if we’re a developer or a property agent, and then they would ask about our track record. It was a chicken-and-egg situation.”
When Gowda started the company in 2007, his intention was to pool together the capital of overseas investors to acquire assets in the UK. His maiden acquisition was a block of 33 apartments in London, purchased in the depths of the global financial crisis in 2008.
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