By Jiang Jingjing (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-27 10:06

Fashion store Lane Crawford announced yesterday that it will open its first wholly owned store on the mainland in October following the termination of franchise agreements at the end of last year.

The 25,000-square-meter store in the new Seasons Place Mall in Beijing will take an investment of HK$300 million investment and will employ more than 300 people.

The store will feature over 600 brands, including Prada, Stella McCartney and Givenchy. More than half of its brand portfolio will be new to the Beijing market.

"Our plan now is to introduce several wholly owned stores in key cities on the mainland, including Shanghai and Macao, within the next five years," said Jennifer Woo, president of the Hong Kong-headquartered company. She declined to reveal detailed figures.

Lane Crawford opened a new-style store in Hong Kong in 2004 with its International Finance Center Mall flagship store, and the following year at Pacific Place, repositioning the company from a traditional department store to one with the largest portfolio of leading fashion brands.

In line with expansion plans, Lane Crawford's former license and franchise operations in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Harbin, which predated the company's current repositioning strategy, have been discontinued.

All the wholly owned stores on the mainland will be managed by Lane Crawford teams, she said. Each store has floor space between 25,000 and 36,000 square meters.

"The Beijing store will equal to 80 percent of the revenue in a Hong Kong store for us in the first year," Woo said.