Kenchart acquires land for logistics centre

Kenchart Development Ltd. is in talks with the government of Chinese town Zhangpu in Jiangsu Province to acquire a plot of land to set up a logistics and distribution centre for the group.
Kenchart is an indirectly wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed clothing retail enterprise I.T Ltd., which has a store at The Venetian Macao.
In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the parent company of I.T Ltd. said the plot of land occupies an area of around 100,005 square metres and is located on the southern side of San Jia Road inside the Kunshan German Industrial Park.
The acquisition cost is approximately 300 million yuan (HK$372 million).
According to the filing, if the acquisition is successful, ‘the duration of the land use right of the land is 50 years from the date of the contract,’ and the land ‘will be developed and utilised by the group as its logistics and distribution centre in the People’s Republic of China.’
Currently, the group is using several warehouses located in different cities throughout mainland China. ‘The group faces long-term rental pressure and limitation in expansion in the existing facilities,’ the filing reads.
Earlier this month, I.T Ltd. said its comparable store sales were affected by last year’s Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong, resulting in sales growth in the SAR dropping by some 4.5 per cent year-on-year during the third quarter of its fiscal year ended November 30.
The accumulative store sales of the group during the first nine months of the fiscal year still posted positive growth, up 0.8 per cent, 2.7 per cent and 13.1 per cent year-on-year in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Japan, respectively.