CNA : Lend Lease exploring more investment opportunities in Singapore

Lend Lease exploring more investment opportunities in Singapore
By Wong Siew Ying, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 03 March 2010 2102 hrs

SINGAPORE: International property firm Lend Lease is hoping to expand its
footprint in Asia.

The company said its three-month old mall, 313@Somerset in Singapore, has
done better than expected, and the firm is eyeing more investment
opportunities in the city state over the next 12 months.

2010 started off on a high note for 313@Somerset, one of three new malls
along Orchard Road.

The other two malls are CapitaLand's ION Orchard and Far East Organisation's
Orchard Central.

Since opening in December last year, Lend Lease said 313@Somerset has
attracted an average of three million people each month.

Responding to Channel NewsAsia, CapitaLand said its retail property ION
Orchard sees a customer traffic of over 4.5 million people a month on
average.

ION Orchard opened last July and it has a retail space of 640,000 square
feet - more than twice the size of 313@Somerset, which has a space of
294,000 square feet.

With more shopping options springing up along Orchard Road and the two
integrated resorts, competition in the retail sector is expected to
intensify.

Lend Lease said it is studying ways to reach out to younger shoppers.

"We are in the mid market and our demographic of shoppers now is 20 per cent
tourists and 80 per cent locals," said Ooi Eng Peng, chief executive officer
of Investment Management at Lend Lease.

"I think with the IRs, we expect more tourists to come to Singapore, more
tourists will come to Orchard Road, and we see it as a positive move."

Without revealing details, Lend Lease said it is currently looking at a
couple of mixed-sites under the government's Land Sales programme, on top of
efforts to expand in markets like China and Malaysia.

And retailers like Catalist-listed AFOR hopes to tap the landlord's network
to expand overseas.

The company runs nine epi-centre stores in Singapore and Malaysia currently,
and 10 more stores could be added in the region within the year.

"Some of the other countries we are looking at are in South East Asia and in
China," said Jimmy Fong, chief executive officer of AFOR Limited. "We are
looking at hiring at least 50 to 100 people over the next 12 to 24 months."

Mr Fong said that total sales recorded in 2009 hit S$65 million, and this is
expected to grow to over S$80 million in 2010.

While retailers seek to expand in anticipation of better times, some
analyses say landlords could up rentals by three to four per cent this year,
on the back of improving consumer sentiment and economic upturn.

On average, prime retail space along Orchard Road goes for about S$38 per
square foot.

- CNA/yb