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SM Prime
Holdings Inc. is building a fourth mall in China early
next year, tapping more into one of the world’s largest
consumer markets and fastest growing economies.
At the
sidelines of the inauguration of SMX Convention Center
late Monday, Hans Sy, president of SM Prime Holdings,
told reporters the latest mall would sit in a 7-hectare
property in Chongqing, southwest China’s commercial
capital.
“Construction will start next year, while completion is
expected in 2009,” Sy said.
The Sy
family began to tap into China five years ago and has
since built a mall in Xiamen, Jinjang and Chengdu.
Chengdu has about the same population as Metro Manila.
SM Prime
also plans to acquire malls in China. Should this push
through at the end of this year, Sy said the long-term
goal is to build more malls in the world’s
second-largest economy.
“We will
initially remain conservative, meaning build one mall at
a time. Once we see further improvement, maybe we can do
two to three malls a year,” he said.
Typically, he said, their malls in China have at least
400 tenants.
SM Prime
Holdings is the nation’s biggest shopping mall operator
and developer. It earlier selected Citigroup Global
Markets Ltd. and Macquarie Securities (Asia) Pte Ltd. as
joint financial advisers to its plan to acquire the
offshore malls currently owned by the Sy family.
In a
recent interview, SM Investments Corp. investor
relations head Cora Guidote told BusinessMirror the plan
to acquire “is a good window for SM [Prime Holdings] to
enter China.” SM Prime is a unit of SM Investments.
She said
various options could be considered to carry out the
plan such as spinning off another company to handle
operations of the China malls.
SM Prime
has over 25 shopping malls in the Philippines.
Apart
from China, Sy said they have been getting invitations
from other groups to study the possibility of bringing
the SM mall brand into Vietnam and India. |
