Amara Holdings
After delisting from the SGX in 2025, Amara Holdings needed its outdated corporate site rebuilt as a business development platform. We designed and built a multi-vertical WordPress site covering hotels, residential and commercial properties.
Replaced an outdated corporate site with a modern WordPress platform that presents Amara's hotel, residential and commercial portfolios clearly to partners and investors.
What we were solving
Amara Holdings is a Singapore lifestyle group with roots in a 1930s construction business founded by Teo Teck Huat. Under second-generation CEO Albert Teo it grew into hotels (Amara Singapore, Amara Sanctuary Sentosa, Amara Bangkok, Amara Shanghai), residential developments (Sanctuary@Newton, 10 Evelyn, M5), commercial properties (100 AM in Singapore and Shanghai) and specialty restaurants. In 2025 the group delisted from the SGX Mainboard and took on new shareholders.
The corporate site did not match the business. In the client's own words it looked outdated, was hard to read, lacked visuals and buried information in unstructured pages. Delisting changed the site's job as well. With no investor relations obligations, it had to work as a business development tool for future partners, media and talent. Amara's brand identity was also mid-refresh, so design had to start before final guidelines existed.
Success meant every business unit visible within one brand, and corporate information that was easy to find.
How we tackled it
Wireframes before the brand was final
The brand refresh was still in flux, so we started with wireframes rather than waiting for guidelines. Templates treat colour, type and brand elements as swappable layers, which let design and development run while Amara's branding work caught up. The confirmed elements, the circular emblem and the goldish-brown palette direction, gave the design enough to anchor on.
Settling hierarchy and tone
The design strategy drew on our earlier work for 8M Real Estate, a Singapore heritage property investor in the same market, and a reviewed set of reference sites. That settled the big questions: how much prominence each vertical gets, how hard to lean on the 1930s heritage story, and whether the tone should be warm and investment-led or institutional. The direction landed on goldish-brown tones with dark blue and grey accents, a professional but warm voice, and heritage presented as a strength through a company timeline.
One system, three verticals
We built the site on WordPress with custom templates for each business area, so hotels, residential developments and commercial properties get distinct presentation inside one design language. Hotel pages link out to the group's separate amarahotels.com booking site rather than duplicating it. Amara's team can add new properties and news updates without a developer. The build also covered the move off the previous hosting, an SEO foundation, analytics and Search Console setup, contact forms with routing, and a news section for press releases.
What we delivered
Amara Holdings now has a corporate site at amaraholdings.com that presents its three verticals (hospitality, commercial, residential) with clear navigation. A company timeline runs from 1937 to the 2025 delisting. Leadership profiles cover Albert Teo, Dawn Teo and Tang Wei Liang, and a news section carries the group's announcements, including its FT High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2026 recognition. The corporate story that used to sit in dense text is structured for the people Amara wants to reach: partners, media and talent.
What we learned
A brand refresh in progress does not have to stall a website. Wireframes first, with colour and type as swappable layers, let design and development run alongside Amara's branding work.
A corporate site changes its job when ownership changes. Delisting removed Amara's investor relations requirements mid-project and the focus shifted to business development. The strategy was built around user journeys (portfolio explorer, partner, media) rather than a fixed page list, so the pivot was straightforward.
The team was professional, responsive and collaborative throughout the process, taking the time to understand our requirements and providing practical guidance along the way.
