SM Prime to bolster China malls business

SM Prime Holdings Inc. is beefing up its mall operations in China in the hope of capturing more customers in the mid-market segment.

John Nai Peng Ong, chief finance officer of the mall operator, said in a press briefing last week that they were looking at upgrading some of their malls in China.

“In terms of our plans, it is specifically redeveloping two of our more mature malls. I’m referring to Jinjiang and Chongqing,” he said.

“We will be introducing another Fujian mall in the next two years,” he added.

READ: SM Prime sets P33-B capital spending for ’25

SM has eight shopping malls in China with 1.6 million square meters (sq.m) of gross floor area (GFA).

Apart from Jinjiang and Chongqing, SM malls are also located in Xiamen, Chengdu, Suzhou, Zibo, Tianjin and Yangzhou.

For this year, SM Prime set aside P21 billion to expand its mall GFA by 205,400 sq.m. Also, 124,488 sq m of existing mall space will be redeveloped.

SM Prime projects that its mall GFA will reach 8.08 million sq.m by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, SM Prime will spend P6 billion in building two convention facilities, renovating hotel rooms and adding new restaurants in its existing hotel portfolio.

Another P6 billion will go to developing new office towers and work spaces in response to growing the lease takeup of its current inventory. This includes Six E-Com Center, a two-tower development within the Mall of Asia complex that is designed to cater to business process outsourcing firms.

Higher rental income and real estate sales lifted the revenues of SM Investments Corp.’s property arm by 10 percent to P140.4 billion last year.

The mall segment accounted for more than half of total revenues. —Tyrone Jasper C. Piad