CPN outlines plan for new shopping malls
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CENTRAL PATTANA plans to launch three shopping centres in Thailand at a cost of Bt12 billion to Bt15 billion over the next five years.
Preecha Ekkunagul, president and chief executive officer, said yesterday that these new properties were part of the company’s business plan to boost its revenue by 15 per cent a year to Bt51.6 billion by 2019.
The company earned Bt6.29 billion on revenue of Bt22.39 billion last year. It targets revenue growth of 15 per cent to Bt25.74 billion this year.
“We believe that our revenue will achieve the target after we reported revenue of Bt12.04 billion and net profit of Bt3.55 billion in the first half of this year,” he said.
Six shopping centres and two renovation projects with a total budget of Bt53 billion are under construction and will be completed over three years.
About 70 per cent of the capital-expenditure budget comes from the company’s internal cash flow and 30 per cent from project loans from banks.
“We have no plan to launch a real-estate investment trust until 2017,” he said.
2015 openings
Three of the six new projects and one branch under renovation will open next year.
They are the Bt14-billion CentralWestGate in July, Bt4-billion CentralPlaza Rayong in May, Bt6-billion CentralFestival East Ville in October and CentralPlaza Pinklao in December.
The next two new projects and one renovation project will open in 2016. They are the Bt4-billion CentralPlaza Nakhon Si Thammarat in April, Bt9.3-billion CentralPlaza Nakhon Ratchasima in the fourth quarter, and CentralPlaza Bangna in March.
The last new centre, the Bt12.7-billion Central Phuket, will open in 2017.
When all of them are completed by 2017, the company will be managing 31 shopping centres with 7 million square metres of retail space, up 27 per cent from 5.5 million square metres in 25 branches this year.
The new branches will also create an average of 2,000 jobs per location.
Then the company plans to develop an average of three projects from 2017-19 with a capex budget of Bt12 billion to Bt15 billion a year.
“We now have more land for developing shopping centres nationwide. We will take time to study such investments before going ahead with them, but our business plan calls for opening an average of three new branches every year,” Preecha said.
In 2017, the company will open its first branch in Malaysia. This Bt6-billion project is being developed by a joint venture with a local firm.
“The Asean Economic Community will encourage our business expansion in Asean. Malaysia is the first country, and then we will expand to other countries in Asean such as Indonesia and Vietnam, which now are in the study process,” he said.
The retail market this quarter appears to be recovering from the first three quarters of this year thanks to foreign tourists returning to Thailand.
