Seibu Coming to Jakarta Soon

Publicly listed retailer PT Mitra Adiperkasa (MAP), the local franchisee of a large number of major international brands, is expanding its high-end retail business by opening Jakarta’s first outlet of upmarket Japanese department store, Seibu. The 27,000-square-meter Seibu store will open May 9 in the Grand Indonesia shopping center in Central Jakarta, and will be operated by MAP subsidiary PT Panen Selaras Intibuana as a Business News Report explains.

“We are offering a new department-store concept, with unique architecture and a different theme on each floor,” Panen Selaras Intibuana president director Welly Swandana said Friday, adding that the five-story outlet was expected to become a new icon of the Jakarta shopping scene.

The store will be Seibu’s first outlet in Southeast Asia. It already has 24 outlets in Japan, Hong Kong and China.

MAP group head of investor relations Ratih D. Gianda said the opening of the store, at a total cost of Rp 60 billion (US$6.6 million), would account for the lion’s share of the firm’s capital expenditure of Rp 270 billion this year, and was expected to reach breakeven point in three years.

As of the end of the first quarter, the company’s sales had increased by 12 percent to Rp 844 billion from Rp 752 billion in the corresponding period last year. Meanwhile, net profit grew slightly by 8 percent to Rp 13 billion from Rp 12 billion previously.

Currently, MAP operates over 600 stores with a total floor space of 290,000 square meters in 22 cities nationwide, marketing such brands as Sogo, Debenhams, ZARA, Marks & Spencer, Nine West, Massimo Dutti, Topman Topshop, Planet Sports, The Athlete’s Foot, Reebok, Starbucks and Swatch.

After recently opening its new food and beverage outlet, Burger King, the company also plans to open a number of new fashion and lifestyle clothing stores, including Giorgio Armani, Chloe and Loewe outlets, in Jakarta later this year.