Properties

F&N's entry into the property business was astutely timed. The year was 1985 and Singapore was in the depths of an economic recession. In a bold move, the Group secured two new industrial sites from the government and announced plans to relocate its breweries and soft drinks plants in Singapore. This paved the way for modernisation of its production facilities, and, more importantly, freed the well-located sites for property redevelopment. To fast-track its development as a key property player, the former Anchor Brewery and Tiger Brewery sites were acquired in 1992. Situated on the former Tiger Brewery site is the Group's present corporate headquarters, Alexandra Point, and Alexandra Technopark, a high-tech industrial facility.

Another propitious development that facilitated the Group's venture into properties was the joint acquisition of Cold Storage Holdings Ltd with Goodman Fielders Watties in 1987. A restructuring of Cold Storage Holdings Ltd in 1990 ended the Group's joint venture arrangement with Goodman Fielders Watties and gave F&N control of Cold Storage's dairy and property businesses (the latter, under the former publicly-listed Centrepoint Properties Limited) in Singapore. In March 2002, Centrepoint Properties Limited was privatised and subsequently de-listed. It was rebranded as Frasers Centrepoint Limited ("FCL") in 2006 and launched its first retail real estate investment trust, Frasers Centrepoint Trust ("FCT") in July 2006. In 2008, it acquired and formed its first commercial trust - Frasers Commercial Trust ("FCOT") to grow its commercial portfolio.

The principal activities of the Properties division are commercial properties management and development, and fund management, residential property development, hospitality management and property management for completed residential, retail, commercial, industrial and serviced apartments, each with its own field of distinct core competencies and strong brands. Under F&N's stewardship, FCL's business has evolved from a single shopping centre along Orchard Road (The Centrepoint) to a diversified investment portfolio of shopping centres, serviced apartments, office towers and high-tech industrial park. Today, its commercial properties portfolio comprising premier retail, office and industrial properties is worth close to $5 billion.

Singapore's relatively small size makes it imperative for the Group to continually seek suitable opportunities for property development overseas. Through F&N's strategic alliance with Chuong Duong Beverage Company, a soft drinks bottler in Vietnam, the properties business was able to expand into Vietnam in 1996 to develop Me Linh Point Tower, a mixed retail and commercial development in Ho Chi Minh City's prime commercial District 1. Pavilions on the Bay, located at one of Sydney's most sought-after suburbs, was the Group's first overseas residential project in Australia in 1999. The Group has a 75% interest in this development. We also teamed up with the same strategic partner to develop an upmarket residential project in London. Frasers Property, the group's international arm, clinched two highly-coveted sites in Shanghai as well as a riverfront site in London, which it will co-develop into mixed residential cum commercial developments with strategic partners.

Frasers Property, will continue to drive continuous growth in overseas markets by developing world-class residential and mixed-use projects in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam and China. Current developments include Shanshui Four Seasons and Suzhou Baitang in China, a 2.5 million square feet Frasers Broadway in Sydney, and The Pano in Bangkok. In addition, Fairbriar PLC, a subsidiary of Frasers Property (UK), is an award-winning developer of quality homes in London and the counties. It has a portfolio of directly owned and joint venture developments underway.

The Group will also continue to embark on selective participation in other opportunities outside of Singapore. In five years' time, the overseas revenue is projected to increase to 50 percent.

The Properties division has charted a strategic blueprint that will see it increasing its focus on residential development properties with particular focus on Singapore's 99-year HDB (Public Housing) upgraders' segment. It will also expand its geographical markets into China, Australia and the UK, and grow a fee-based management business in shopping centres and serviced residences by leveraging our refined expertise and a strong reputation in managing our malls and commercial properties. Capital-intensive asset ownership will be de-emphasised by divesting and restructuring the investment properties so as to avail the capital for re-investment in businesses of higher capital productivity within the Group. The securitisation of Compass Point Shopping Centre in 2002 was part of the Group's overall strategy to re-deploy assets to higher-yielding activities and to focus on asset-light, fee-based businesses, thereby enhancing shareholder value.

Homes

On the residential front, the Group's first two development projects, Valley Park and The Anchorage, located at its previous soft drinks and brewery sites, were a huge success - thanks to a buoyant economy and a bullish property market. All condominium units were taken up within months of their launch in 1994, yielding good profits, which boosted the earnings of the Group. Although 1997 was a difficult year for most businesses because of the Asian economic crisis, it was an excellent opportunity for the Group to build up a low-cost residential land bank, which was subsequently developed into residential homes for sale. To-date, the Group has developed over 34 residential projects and built over 10,000 quality homes in Singapore. In 2002, it achieved record sales of over 1,500 residential homes despite cloudy economic conditions, making it the leading developer of 99-year leasehold residential properties in Singapore. Beyond Singapore, the Group has identified Australia, New Zealand and China as key markets to strengthen and expand its property development business.

Frasers Centrepoint Homes is one of the major branding initiatives of FCL to enhance its presence and create its distinctive identity in the residential market. Stringent performance and material standards were established in an effort to achieve continuous quality improvements within all Frasers Centrepoint Homes. Its success is largely due to a mix of strong attributes - choice location, well-timed marketing and sales launches, attractive pricing and constant product refinement that meet and exceed market expectations. This has served to entrench the brand name of Frasers Centrepoint Homes, which is now widely recognised by homeowners as a consistent and reliable developer of quality homes.

Commercial Properties

The Properties division has grown from strength to strength, evolving from a one-shopping centre business to become one of the largest owner and operator of shopping malls in Singapore. A formula of strategic location, good retail conceptualisation, quality management and sound tenant relationships drives our success as a leading manager of shopping malls. Frasers Centrepoint Malls comprises The Centrepoint, Causeway Point, Compass Point, Northpoint, Anchorpoint, Robertson Walk and Valley Point. These seven properties span both urban and suburban areas, covering more than 1.9million sq ft of retail space, with over 650 shops. Overseas shopping malls include Bridgepoint in Sydney, and Crosspoint in Beijing.

In addition, the division owns and manages a retail-cum-office development - Me Linh Point Tower in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as well as two Grade A office towers comprising Alexandra Point and Valley Point, and Alexandra Technopark in Singapore. The combined net lettable area of the three properties is 1.4 million sq ft. Key tenants of the three properties include HP, Nokia, Microsoft, and Manulife.

Also included as part of the portfolio are assets in the 55% owned Frasers Property (China) Limited - a leading provider of total business solutions for enterprises in Greater China. Its two core businesses are: development of business parks and facilities, and property development and management. The two key business parks are Vision (Shenzhen) Business Park, which is the flagship business park located on a prime site within the Shenzhen Hi-Tech Industrial Park spanning 33.8 hectares of land, and SOHU.com Internet Plaza - the key business park facility located in Tsinghua Science Park, Beijing.

Property Funds

The Group launched its first retail Real Estate Investment Trust, Frasers Centrepoint Trust (FCT) in July 2006, as its vehicle to grow its retail mall investment and management business in Singapore and overseas. FCT has a portfolio of three quality suburban malls - Causeway Point, Northpoint, and Anchorpoint - all of which enjoy wide captive markets, good connectivity and high occupancy, providing the basis for a strong and sustainable income stream. FCT also has an interest in an underlying portfolio of good quality suburban regional malls via a Malaysian REIT - Subang Parade in Selangor, Mahkota Parade in Melaka and Wetex Parade in Johore Bahru - positioning FCT well to participate in long-term and substantial opportunities in the Malaysian market. Further, the Group has committed a pipeline of local quality properties, namely Northpoint 2, YewTee Point, Bedok Mall and The Centrepoint. Upon injection, these properties will increase the FCT portfolio net lettable area to more than 2.2 million sq ft.

In August 2008, the Property division acquired 17.7% stake in Allco commercial REIT and 100% of the REIT's manager. The Reit was renamed as Frasers Commercial Trust, and has a market capitalisation of $504 million, with $2 billion of commercial properties located in Singapore, Australia and Japan. The portfolio includes prime CBD offices in Singapore such as 55 Market Street and China Square Central, as well as Central Park, Perth - the tallest building in the city.

Hospitality

Drawing on its strengths in consumer marketing and brand management, the Group ventured into the hospitality management services business. The Fraser Suites and Fraser Place brand of Serviced Residences were launched in Singapore in 1998. This was followed by the formation of Frasers Hospitality in the year 2000 to extend the hospitality management services to the region, providing a fee-based source of income to complement the Group's earnings. Having established itself as the second largest branded serviced apartment operator in Singapore, Frasers Hospitality has since secured overseas management contracts for developments in Seoul, Manila, London, Glasgow, Paris, Tokyo, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Bangkok, Beijing, Nanjing, Sydney, Bahrain and Dubai.

In line with the Group's overall strategy to increase its fee-based income, Frasers Hospitality seeks to minimise equity participation whilst retaining management to perpetuate its brand. Fraser Residences Ltd, a joint venture with Fairbriar PLC, manages four serviced apartment complexes in London. In the first year of operation, occupancies for the serviced residences in Kensington, Chelsea and Canary Wharf peaked at 90%.

Today, Frasers Hospitality manages 29 serviced residences with more than 4,750 apartments in major gateway cities of the world spanning Australia, North Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East. By 2010, it targets to manage 10,000 serviced apartments (both operational and signed-up).