Retailers taking long view of China's market

Robert Welanetz is a retail expert with 35 years in the industry. The chairman of the International Council of Shopping Centres - the global trade association of the shopping centre industry - is a Blackstone Real Estate Partner's global retail real estate adviser, assisting in sourcing and creating investment strategies and underwriting acquisition targets. Before this assignment with Blackstone, Welanetz was the president and chief executive of Shanghai Kinghill and co-chairman of Chia Tai Real Estate.

I think [the term] global retailers is a big universal bucket. So I would say international retailers that are coming from outside Asia have a choice to make. Whether they want to develop an organic business model or they believe that determining a growth strategy for the region and then executing it as a wholly owned business is one option.

The other option that people have looked at and evaluated is whether, in coming to the region, they are better suited to [join] a joint-venture partner that is an experienced practitioner in the retail field and experienced in the region. Either can work, neither is right nor wrong.

It has a lot to do with, I think, the resources available to the company and its own personal views on the most effective way to grow and manage around the risk profile of executing in the markets.

Regional retailers, which are still global retailers in some respects, are a lot more culturally attuned to executing business in the market and probably have had the most success. A regional player coming from Asia would be a Uniqlo or there are certainly examples coming from Hong Kong as well. So these retailers are culturally attuned to the dynamics.