Straits Real Estate eyes adaptive China retail
It sees new retail formats, ideas and concepts in brick-and-mortar space there as it aims to double its S$1.2b in AUM in five years.
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STRAITS Real Estate (SRE), a subsidiary of Straits Trading Company (STC), is exploring more investments in China's retail scene, seemingly undeterred by the explosive growth of e-commerce there.
This is because it finds that offline sales, including sales at shopping centres, have continued to expand despite the online competition, and Chinese retailers have in fact adapted quickly to changing consumer needs by reinventing themselves with new offerings.
In a recent interview with The Business Times, Desmond Tang, chief executive officer of SRE, says: "Obviously there's been a lot of talk and concern about e-commerce, how retail is being beaten up. If I'm on this and I look around all the markets that we understand, including some European and Japanese markets, I'd think the Chinese retailers have been the most adaptive to the whole new world of e-commerce."
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