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| AsiaViews, Edition: 48/VI/March2010 |
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| Lend Lease eyes Asian expansion |
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SINGAPORE - With its three-month-old mall 313@Somerset in Orchard Road doing better than expected, international property firm Lend Lease is hoping to expand its footprint in Asia.
And the company is eyeing more investment opportunities in the city state over the next 12 months.
This year started off on a high note for 313@Somerset, one of three new malls along Orchard Road. The other two malls are CapitaLand's Ion Orchard and Far East Organization's Orchard Central.
According to Lend Lease, 313@Somerset has attracted an average of 3 million people each month since opening in December last year.
This compares to Ion Orchard's monthly average of over 4.5 million visitors.
Ion Orchard opened last July and it has a retail space of 640,000 sq ft. That's more than twice the size of 313@Somerset (294,000 sq ft).
With more shopping options springing up along Orchard Road and the two integrated resorts, competition in the retail sector is expected to intensify.
And Lend Lease said it's studying ways to reach out to younger shoppers.
"We are in the mid market and our demographic of shoppers now is 20 per cent tourists and 80 per cent locals, I think with the IRs, we expect more tourists to come to Singapore, more tourists will come to Orchard Road and we see it as a positive move," said Mr Ooi Eng Peng, chief executive officer, Investment Management, Lend Lease.
Without revealing details, Lend Lease said it's currently looking at a couple of mixed-sites under the Government's Land Sales programme.
This is on top of efforts to expand in markets like China and Malaysia.
And retailers like Catalist-listed Afor, hopes to tap the landlord's network to expand overseas.
The company runs nine epi-centre stores in Singapore and Malaysia currently, and 10 more stores could be added in the region within the year.
"Some of the other countries we are looking at are in South-east Asia and in China. We are looking at hiring at least 50 to 100 people over the next 12 to 24 months," said Mr Jimmy Fong, CEO, Afor Limited.
Mr Fong said total sales recorded last year hit $65 million. And this is expected to grow to over $80 million this year.
While retailers seek to expand in anticipation of better times, some analysts say landlords could up rentals of prime retail space by 3 to 4 per cent this year, on the back of improving consumer sentiment and economic upturn.
On average, prime retail space along Orchard Road goes for about $38 per square foot. |
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| By Wong Siew Ying |
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| Today, 04 March 2010 |
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