A study on the difficulties of the HA in operating shopping centres

Abstract

The Hong Kong Housing Authority was divested its retail facilities in public rental housing estates to the Link REIT in 2005. Disposing of the assets at severely diminished valuation is the most important one of public concern. The Link REIT is now engaging in commercial business activities in respect of a pure commercial point of view, and hence a lot of enhancement works has been carried out so as to achieve a good performance in financial return. On the contrary, the retail facilities previously developed by the authority was to support the day to day needs of the residents in the nearby housing estates. The authority as a statutory body is less consideration in profit making. So it seems that the management of Link REIT is successful than that of the authority and the divested public properties were disposed at very low prices. In this study, I will find out the management performances of the both organisations by using empirical data. Based on the result, the difficulties of the Hong Kong Housing Authority in operating shopping centres are subsequently explained.