WCT Holdings Bhd is committed to growing its shopping mall business, with the group targeting to grow the net lettable area of its shopping malls from two million sq ft currently to 3.3 million sq ft by 2016, according to its executive director Kenny Wong Yik Kae.
He envisaged the group adding another two shopping malls within five years. These are Paradigm Mall in Johor Bahru, which is set to open in Q3 2016 and Paradigm Mall in OUG, which is slated to open in 2018.
The two new malls will be managed by its sub-subsidiary WCT Malls Management Sdn Bhd, which also manages the Gateway @ KLIA2 in Sepang and Paradigm Mall in Petaling Jaya.
“It (malls) may not be sizeable as our construction contracts, where every year we look at RM1 billion to RM2 billion worth of contracts but it is part of our overall WCT strategy to diversify our business. When times are bad, malls gives us a stable and steady recurring income that will help us cushion the down time of the construction cycle,” said Wong.
He noted that Gateway @ KLIA2 is already a regional mall registering three million footfalls each month, while Paradigm Mall sees monthly footfalls of between 1.3 million and 1.4 million.
“We continue to reach out and we’re trying to bring in other segments like tourists into our malls. With the weak ringgit, there is an opportunity for us and we will work with tenants to cushion this difficult time, as the mall business is a long term business and we should look at a longer horizon.”
“Internally, we want to ensure we grow our team to prepare for Paradigm Mall Johor Baru and we’re looking at putting our malls on REIT (real estate investment trust) and preparing our malls to be ISO-certified,” he said.
With two million sq ft of retail malls now, Wong sees huge potential in its three malls, with Bukit Tinggi Shopping Centre already in its seventh year, Paradigm Mall in Petaling Jaya in its third year and Gateway @ KLIA2 is witnessing high traffic even when its only in its eight month.
“We feel it is a good mix of assets that can be parked into the REIT that may attract interest. Sometimes it may not be a mature mall but a mall that is growing so that we have upside potential,” added Wong.
Farah Wahida, Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact her about this or other stories email farahwahida@propertyguru.com.my
