SHKP upbeat about retail market in Hong Kong and mainland China
Maureen Fung says malls along MTR lines have seen healthy sales growth
In the past eight years, Maureen Fung Sau-yim, a director at Sun Hung Kai Development (China), a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP), has seen a dramatic change in her career path and in the retail industry at home and in mainland China.
In that time she has been the key person behind the pre-leasing and opening of three large shopping malls, one in Hong Kong and two in Shanghai, with a combined area of 3.1 million sq ft – quite likely a record for an individual in the retail industry in terms of square feet of new malls opened in such a short period of time.
The three malls are the 630,000 sq ft APM mall in Kwun Tong, the 1.2 million sq ft luxury Shanghai IFC mall project in Lujiazui, Pudong, and the 1.3 million sq ft iAPM on Shanghai’s busiest shopping strip, at 999 Huai Hai Zhong Road.
Her next challenges are a new project in Xujiahui, Shanghai, a new Nanjing IFC mall and the renovation of Shanghai’s Central Plaza.
The Xujiahui Centre project will comprise 7.6 million sq ft of high-end shopping mall, grade-A office and a luxury hotel. Phase one will comprise 180,000 sq ft of office space, which will be handed over in the first half of next year, with the 330,000 sq ft shopping mall scheduled to open in 2018.
In September 2013, SHKP won the large site for 21.77 billion yuan (then equivalent to HK$27.8 billion).