Weekly News Wrap: China offers glimpse to post-pandemic retailing; Eviction looms for Hong Kong's stores

And gold rally boosts Malaysia’s jeweler stocks.

From CNBC:

The post-coronavirus retail industry will draw heavily from the online shopping trends already seen in China, analysts from consulting firm Bain said in a report released Thursday.

Asia Pacific generates about three quarters of global retail growth, and about two thirds of online growth, according to the Bain report, titled “The Future of Retail in Asia-Pacific: How to Thrive at High Speed.”

Riding that growth are three Chinese retailers — Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo — which together with Japan’s Seven & I now rank among the top 10 retailers worldwide, according to Bain analysis. The firm noted that about a decade ago, only one or two Asia Pacific-based retailers made the top 10 list.

“What’s happening in China today is going to happen in other markets to a lesser or greater degree depending on the market,” Kanaiya Parekh, expert partner, Hong Kong, at Bain, said in a phone interview.

Read more here.

From Bloomberg:

Retailers everywhere are feeling the pinch from the pandemic, though none quite as much as shop owners in Hong Kong like Don Leung.

His business already stung by months of pro-democracy protests and a deep recession, Leung now faces possible eviction because his landlord won’t budge on the rent.

Whilst governments and landlords in countries across Europe, the US and parts of Asia are offering some form of rent relief—and Hong Kong’s central bank announced mortgage support for commercial property owners this week—retailers in the finance hub are on their own after getting some help at the start of the pandemic.

According to the Hong Kong Retail Management Association (HKRMA), which represents more than 9,000 companies, almost half of its members surveyed have received legal letters from their landlords for delayed payments. The group has warned that one in four shops may close this year without substantial support.

Read more here.

From Bloomberg:

After helping boost a glove maker to the top of this year’s Asian stock-performance charts, Malaysia investors have recently been driving up the nation’s gold-related equities on the back of a rally in the precious metal.

Shares in little-known Malaysian jewelers including Niche Capital Emas Holdings and Tomei Consolidated have more than doubled in the past few weeks. Small caps related to gold are seen as another way to play the metal, which climbed to a record this month on inflation worries following massive central bank easing to fight the pandemic, and a drop in real interest rates.

The gains have been aided by a boom in individual investing in the Southeast Asian country. The growing retail participation has partially fueled the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index’s outperformance of its Southeast Asian peers.

Read more here.