Tesco – by sales the largest retailer in Britain – has signed an agreement to set up the first in a planned series of joint venture shopping malls to be developed in China.50% of the joint venture will be owned by a syndicate of leading Asian investors including HSBC Nan Fung China Real Estate Fund, Singapore’s Metro Holdings and Hong Kong’s Nan Fung Group.
The joint venture will start with three shopping malls in Anshan, Fushan and Qinhuangdao, each of which includes a Tesco hypermarket as the anchor tenant.
Wall Street Journal reports that Tesco’s plan is to open 18 new hypermarkets in China in the twelve months ending February 2010.