Ascott boosts presence in China with three new properties

It's eyeing 12,000 units in China by 2015.

According to a release, CapitaLand’s wholly-owned serviced residence business unit, The Ascott Limited (Ascott), has secured contracts to manage three more properties, adding 567 apartment units in China, including its first serviced residence in Hefei.

The 250-unit Somerset Swan Lake Hefei is slated to open in 2017 while the 150-unit Ascott Nanbin Chongqing and 167-unit Somerset Software Park Xiamen are both slated to open in 2015.

The three new properties will further strengthen Ascott’s leadership position as the largest international serviced residence owner-operator in China with
more than 9,000 apartment units in 51 properties across 20 cities.

Mr Lee Chee Koon, Ascott’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “China is our key market and we are growing rapidly through management contracts,
investments and strategic alliances.

We are on track to achieve our target of 12,000 apartment units in China by 2015. Hefei, the capital and economic centre of Anhui Province, is one of the world’s fastest growing metropolitan economies.

Its economy and foreign direct investment grew respectively by an average of 16% and 11% annually in the last five years. Ascott is the first international serviced residence operator in Hefei.

Ascott has so far entered six cities in 2013 – Hefei, Nanjing and Wuxi in China, Gurgaon in India, and Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Our global portfolio has expanded to over 32,000 apartment units in 81 cities.”