UK's Tesco to develop shopping centers in China
- Source: Global Times
- [12:51 November 13 2009]
- Comments
Retailer Tesco said Thursday it was planning to form a 50-50 joint venture with a group of Asian investors to build three large shopping center developments in China.
The UK's biggest retailer disclosed Thursday it will invest about £100 million (1.13 billion yuan) for a 50 percent stake of the joint venture, with HSBC Nan Fung China Real Estate Fund, Metro Holdings of Singapore and Nan Fung Group of Hong Kong together holding the other half.
A 500,000 square feet space for retail, entertainment and residential area in Fushan, northeast China will be built by the partnership to become Tesco's first shopping center development in China. It will be followed by two other malls in Anshan and Qinhuangdao in northern China, according to the company which didn't post the starting date of the projects.
"It is very encouraging that our fellow investors see the scale of the opportunity in China and the appeal of these exciting developments in the country's growing northern cities," said Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Tesco's corporate and legal affairs director.
If the first three centers are successful, Tesco could roll out a series of malls in China, a country that Clive Black, an analyst at Shore Capital, a UK investment banking group, expects "to become a growing focus of investor interest in Tesco" over the next few years.
