CapitaLand shopping mall retailers are likely to see some CapitaLand personnel, including CEO and President Liew Mun Leong, spending a lump of their bonuses in the near future. Mr. Liew will be giving vouchers to the retailers as well.
Shopping vouchers worth $1 million in total are set to be given by CapitaLand to around 680 of its managerial staff as part of their bonuses for the current year. CapitaLand will be funding these vouchers, which will be redeemable at about a thousand of participating outlets located at all 12 shopping malls owned by the CapitaLand group. Stores will include Plaza Singapura, Raffles City Shopping Centre and Bugis Junction.
A spokesman of CapitaLand said, “Staff will receive the shopping vouchers in March 2009, and the amounts given range from $750 to $10,000 in value, depending on the total bonus”.
Staff who will get to receive the vouchers can redeem them in various outlets ranging from fast food outlets to jewellery stores, as well as do-it-yourself stores.
“More importantly, they can buy household essentials such as groceries and other necessities from tenants such as Giant Hypermart, NTUC Fairprice, Cold Storage and Carrefour. We had a positive response from staff when the initiative was conveyed to them at a recent staff communication session”, the spokesman added.
Pay cuts ranging from 3 percent to 20 percent was announced by CapitaLand last December. This move was set to take effect for the executive- and management-level employees, and was decided to commence last January (of this year). It also represents CapitaLand’s way of leading the cash flow back to its shopping mall tenants.
The spokesman said, “This innovative initiative to increase expenditure and footfall at our malls enables CapitaLand to directly support our retail tenants during this challenging economic climate. By targeting consumption in CapitaLand’s malls, we are able to create a multiplier effect and a win-win situation for both tenants and staff”.
Tenants have also expressed their support for the move. Yuen Yew Meng, managing director of a do-it-yourself chain of stores called HomeFix, said “I think this is a good measure because CapitaLand’s rank-and-file will support their malls’ tenants. The vouchers that are redeemed will be able to be booked as sales”.
Sales for tenants have also become better. “While I’ve been maintaining my sales due to an increase in home repair and projects, foot traffic has definitely fallen, according to all my stores’ managers”, Mr. Yuen said.
Other developers that have retail tenants, like Suntec Reit, Frasers Centrepoint and Allgreen Properties, still don’t show signs of following the suit.