CapLand Revamp To Focus On China, S’pore

Source : The Business Times, April 1, 2008

CAPITALAND chief executive Liew Mun Leong will take a more direct role in the company’s China outfit and Singapore residential business as the developer looks to those segments for growth.

Under changes announced yesterday, Lim Ming Yan, chief executive of the company’s China business, and Patricia Chia, head of its Singapore residential unit, will report directly to Mr Liew from today.

With this ‘flattened organisational structure’, the position of chief executive of CapitaLand Residential is no longer necessary, the company said. With this in mind, Lui Chong Chee, to whom Mr Lim and Ms Chia had reported, will become head of financial services.

Pua Seck Guan, chief executive of CapitaLand’s retail arm, will relinquish his role as co-head of the financial services operations and focus on expanding the group’s retail mall business in Singapore and abroad.

‘It’s a reflection of how quickly the business of China and Singapore homes have grown and how important they have become,’ Vikrant Pandey, an analyst with UOB Kay Hian, told Bloomberg. ‘I view this as a positive signal in the sense that they are putting the emphasis on fast-growing segments.’

CapitaLand’s three biggest markets are China, Singapore and Australia. The developer said that China and Singapore will see a marked increase in the value and volume of residential units to be built over the next few years.

The company’s China unit also oversees the development of integrated projects like the Raffles City developments in Beijing, Chengdu and Hangzhou in addition to building homes. And in Singapore, CapitaLand manages a landbank with a few large-scale developments in the pipeline.

CapitaLand’s stock closed one cent up at $6.35 yesterday.