MANILA, Philippines - Waltermart, the pioneer of community shopping center format in the Philippines, is seeking to grow at a similar pace with SM malls in the coming years, especially now that it has the financial backing of retail, banking and property conglomerate SM Investments Corp.
In an interview, Waltermart Malls managing director Wilson Q. Lim, Jr. told The STAR that the company intends to open two to three new malls by next year, all of which will be located in Luzon.
Apart from the new branches, Lim said the company is also looking at expanding two of its existing malls by next year.
For its part, SM has been putting up an average of three to four malls per year over the past years.
“So for next year, we have two for expansion and two for new developments and we’re looking at one more so that the target for next year will be three. But we are also looking for more developments,” he said.
Lim said the investment for the new Waltermart malls are still being finalized.
“Investment depends on the property size and the market because you have malls that are big and malls that are medium-sized,” he said.
There are 23 Waltermart stores across Luzon as of end September this year, bulk of which are situated in the outskirts of Metro Manila.
As a community mall developer, Waltermart has put up branches in various towns in Batangas, Laguna, Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija. Some of these community malls feature cinemas and supermarkets.
The SM Group in January last year bought into the Waltermart Group of Companies, resulting into a 50-50 partnership between the Sy family and Lim family.
SMIC did not take over the management and business of Waltermart but instead gave the latter financial muscle for the expansion of its malls and supermarkets.
“We are happy with the partnership. There’s a lot of best practices that we’re picking up and we are sharing also. Of course, we remain focus on our community mall format,” Lim said.
Prior to SM’s entry, the Waltermart group has already been in the retailing business through its shopping malls and supermarkets for over 20 years.
SM, for its part, is king when it comes to retailing in the Philippines through its empire of malls across the country.
The conglomerate recently opened SM Center Angono, its 50th mall in the country.