Solomon Lew is renowned for driving a hard bargain and that’s exactly what he has been doing in Hong Kong this week.
Australia’s most strategic billionaire and the man running his fast-growing stationery empire – John Cheston – spent Friday in a van visiting dozens of shopping malls in the former British colony. They will do the same again on Saturday.
It is not Hong Kong’s glitzy designer stores that interest Lew. He and Cheston are personally inspecting the sites identified by Premier Investments’ property team as locations for a chain of Smiggle stores due to open in the territory early next year.
“We walk every centre. We walk every store. We are there in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and we go back in the evening. We want to see different times of the day. We go early in the morning and then it revs up. The kids finish school and then … bingo!” Lew says in an interview with AFR Weekend.
“This is a business that caters to six to 14 years of age, 75 per cent female. You are getting a new crop growing every year. As they fall out at the older end, the younger ones are coming in. When you see them walking in and they bring their piggy bank and turn it upside down and say what can I get for this, it’s just amazing. ”
We are sitting in Lew’s hotel room in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel overlooking Hong Kong’s busy harbour. It is a sight Lew is familiar with.
He has been travelling to Hong Kong since the 1960s, up to 11 times a year. But instead of importing goods made in China to Australia, he now plans to sell stationery to the Chinese – and a lot of it.
After a reconnaissance trip to Hong Kong in June, Lew and his team are getting serious this week. Premier chief Mark McInnes is joining them in the van before flying to Kuala Lumpur on Saturday for the next leg of the tour.
Smiggle, the stationery chain which has become the fastest-growing business in Lew’s Premier Investments apparel empire, is planning to open 50 stores in Hong Kong and Malaysia over the next five years. It is the next phase in his plans to take the brand global after breaking into the United Kingdom, where 200 stores are planned.
Lew wants Cheston to do most of the talking. He is the Asia expert after all after running Marks & Spencer’s Hong Kong operations and listed Singapore retailer Robinson & Co before moving to Australia to run Smiggle.
The perfect market
Cheston says densely-populated Hong Kong is perfect for Smiggle, which is making millions selling brightly-coloured lunch boxes, backpacks, water bottles, and pencil cases to six to 14-year olds in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
“There is a predominance of shopping centres here and that is our fertile ground, limited competition. From what we do there is not a lot of competition. We have well established contacts through Sol,” he says.
“In Hong Kong if you are hot they want you and if you are cold they don’t. We are in demand from the landlords over here. We need to leverage that business with the agents who represent us and get good locations and get good deals. The biggest challenge is getting the space and the rents,” Cheston says.
That is something Lew has plenty of experience at. Rather than being deterred by China’s slowing economy, which is hitting high-end luxury retail sales in places like Hong Kong, Lew says it is an opportunity to negotiate better deals from landlords. He also sees it as a gateway to China, a country he has had plenty of experience with over the decades building his apparel empire, because 41 million mainland tourists visit Hong Kong each year.
The plan now is to take Smiggle global. Cheston says he has had inquiries from literally every country on the planet to franchise the brand but, for now, Premier plans to keep the stores wholly-owned. Lew says it’s better than the McDonald’s model.
“The international business in a very short period of time will be much larger than the Australian business and there are not too many Australian retailers who have been successful offshore,” Lew says.
“This is going to be world-class operation and there is no reason it shouldn’t work in any country in the world where there is moderate income.”
Lew’s focus on overseas expansion stands in stark contrast to some of the other big names in Australian retail.
Myer, for example, is embarking on a $600 million revival plan under new chief executive Richard Umbers. The company has been described as a possible takeover target for Premier Investments, but Lew would not comment on the seemingly perennial speculation about such a tilt.
Nor would he comment on the progress of David Jones. Last year, Lew grabbed a windfall of about $400 million when South African retailer Woolworths Holdings bought David Jones and Country Road; Lew had stakes in both. David Jones looked to be riding high until recent weeks when chief executive Ian Nairn stepped down suddenly.
Singapore experience being applied
Cheston says the success of Smiggle’s Orchid Road operations in Singapore are now being used as leverage to negotiate good deals with landlords in Hong Kong because it drives traffic to shopping malls.
Like the UK operations, he expects Hong Kong to be profitable in the first year. The plan is to open 50 stores across Hong Kong and Malaysia which will make $55 million in revenue. In Hong Kong, Lew would like to firm up 10 stores initially but says he will probably start with five or six.
Australia has almost peaked with around 10 additional stores on top of the existing 124 planned. The Hong Kong target is around 25 to 35 stores and 20 in Malaysia, mainly in Kuala Lumpur.
As well as lower taxes, Cheston says Asia is attractive for the “kidult” market, where older people who live in small apartments with their families like to adorn their office workstations with stationery.
Premier Investments posted record full-year results last month and is expected to hit sales of more than $1 billion this year. Double-digit growth at Smiggle and its designer pyjama business, Peter Alexander, are outstripping the company’s core apparel brands such as Just Jeans and Dotti.
