CapitaLand signs shopping mall management contract in China
CAPITALAND Mall Asia, the wholly owned shopping mall business of CapitaLand, has inked its second management contract within a span of five months, the company said yesterday.
CapitaLand will manage the shopping mall in La Botanica, a township located in Xi’an’s Chan-Ba Ecological District being developed by CapitaLand-Henderson (Xi’an) Property Development, a joint venture of the Singapore developer and Hong Kong-based Henderson Land.
CapitaLand said last August that it is managing the retail component of Fortune Finance Centre in Changsha, China, for Changsha Pilot Investment, and last September that it had acquired CapitaMall Xinnan in Chengdu.
Including the La Botanica property, CapitaLand manages 14 shopping malls in western China with retail gross floor area (GFA) of 1.13 million square metres.
The region is also home to two of CapitaLand’s flagship Raffles City integrated developments – Raffles City Chengdu, which opened in 2012, and Raffles City Chongqing, Singapore’s single largest investment in China at 24 billion yuan (Bt123 billion) that will start opening in phases in 2018.
“We are fast-tracking the growth of our shopping mall network in western China to capitalise on the region’s favourable economic prospects, which have been boosted by the Chinese government’s Western China Development Programme, One Belt, One Road economic initiative as well as the Sino-Singapore Chongqing Connectivity Initiative,” said Jason Leow, CEO of CapitaLand Mall Asia.
“As more of these malls open and turn fully operational, it will position CapitaLand well to deliver sustainable returns in the near future with a positive knock-on effect on our ROE.
“This year, CapitaLand is preparing to open eight more malls, of which six will be in China.
“As we continue to enhance our retail scale and network through acquisitions and management contracts, we will also look at reconstituting our portfolio to achieve an optimal asset mix to provide us with stability and a strong recurring income stream.”
Under the contract, CapitaLand will oversee asset planning, pre-opening and retail management for a five-storey shopping mall – four levels above ground and one basement – with GFA, excluding car park, of about 50,000m2.
Expected to start operating in 2019, the mall will double CapitaLand’s retail presence in Xi’an, where it owns and manages CapitaMall Xindicheng, a 60,000m2 mall about 10 kilometres south of La Botanica.
