Dickson Concept doubles down on quest for big spenders as it opens renovated Harvey Nichols store with savvy digital tech

Pearson Poon, 25-year old son of Dickson Poon, is spearheading the effort by Harvey Nichols to become more digitally savvy

The protests have hurt the luxury retailer, but Poon says the group has a healthy cash balance and is looking for opportunities

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Harvey Nichols’ store at Swire Properties Limited’s Pacific Place shopping centre in Admiralty, Hong Kong on December 19, 2018. The store closed for a three-month renovation in June, before reopening with a floor plate half its original size. Photo: SCMP

Published: 8:00am, 26 Sep 2019Updated: 10:27am, 26 Sep 2019

Dickson Concepts (International) Limited, the Hong Kong purveyor of watches, clothing and luxury products, is doubling down on its quest for big spenders, as it reopens the second of its upmarket Harvey Nichols department stores.

The store at Swire Properties Limited’s Pacific Place shopping centre in Admiralty reopens on September 26 after a three-month overhaul and a price tag of HK$250 million (US$32 million). The outlet’s floor plate will be halved to 42,000 square feet (3,900 square metres).

Harvey Nichols, which counts Bertolucci luxury watches, Rolex, Chopard and Tom Ford among its portfolio of global brands, is one of the very few retailers expanding in Hong Kong, where a sales slump wrought by the worst political crisis in the city’s history has caused one in 10 shops to stand empty in the Causeway Bay shopping district.

“It may not have been the worst thing that we were refurbishing at the time” when Hong Kong’s protest rallies picked up pace, said the company’s executive director Pearson Poon, during an interview last week with South China Morning Post.

Interview with Pearson Poon, executive director of Dickson Concepts (International) Limited, which owns the Harvey Nichols chain of upmarket department stores, at Pacific Place in Admiralty on 17 September 2019. Photo: David Wong

What began as a peaceful march on June 9 by an estimated 1 million people to oppose a controversial extradition bill has since deteriorated into protest rallies with almost daily clashes between police and protesters in various districts in the city.

The clashes caused a slump in the city’s visitor numbers, crimped retail sales and caused property prices to plunge, putting Hong Kong’s economy on track for a technical recession in the fiscal third quarter starting in October. Prada, the Milanese fashion brand, would shut its flagship store in Causeway Bay when its lease expires in June next year, in a decision that’s forcing its landlord to slash the monthly asking rent by 44 per cent.

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