Business today actually is very good compared to a year ago. Ithink a year ago we were in the abyss. I hope that was the
last year.We're coming out of half a year of protests. or half a year or more of
protest straight intothe pandemic.
So last year when things were unclear. No customers didn't knowwhere was safe to go. Not safe. The government wasn't sure what
what to do aboutpolicy making. So last it was was probably the worst period of
my career. And I and I went through Sars as well through myworking life. This year things have definitely bounced back. I
think there's been a rebalancing and people have come out andstarted to realize that there's a way to spend that locally.
Where are you finding the strength. Is it in FNB food andbeverage. Is it in retail. So for us in our business we wear a
few hats. One is the landlord and the other is as a FNBoperator. So as a landlord we luckily we're not exposed to a lot
of retailers. Definitely retail is still very bad because thatwas mostly driven by mainland Chinese shoppers especially the
luxury end of it. But FNB now I think it really has come back atleast the top end of the FNB.
The people that normally would fly around to TokyoBangkok Paris whatever they can't do that now. So they're happy
to find ways to spend locally. You've probably had a highturnover rate though of tenants. Last year there was some
turnover. But we as a landlord we try our best to work with ourpartners which is our tenants to make sure that they can get
through it where it makes sense and what is possible as far asrent breaks and things like that. I mean on average I've seen
some numbers from other media and the government 20 30 percentdown. Ballpark. Yeah that's fair to say for us. Although
occupancy now has come up we're at 98 percent occupancy. Now wedid spend the end of last year trying hard to
kind of reformulate our trademarks and we realized that healthand wellness obviously was a pandemic. That's what people care
about now. Right. So put in some more health and wellnessoperators. That's the key is to adapt or die. Right. Yeah. So
how what was your biggest change. You didn't just wait for thepeople to come back for policy to change. You must have had a
pivot. What was your strategy.The pivot was over a year or so the pivoting. We pivoted a few
times during that year. FNB was restricted andnot not allowed to open or restricted from opening from normal
hours for almost two hundred and eighty days or something likethat last year. So renting to FNB didn't really make sense until
towards the end of the year where some F and B operators decidedto take take a bet that OK rents have come down. Things won't be
closed forever. Let's let's make some make make some deals. ButI think what the pandemic did do for us as a business it did
allow us to rebalance things. Look at what works what doesn'twork cut some of the fat
and then really go back tomaking sure that things like
customer loyalty programs are working or employee benefitprograms and things like that. What direction do you want to
take LKF? one is kind of physically you know the physicalenvironment improve that beautify that you know redeveloping
different parts of the area is important but then alsocontinuing to
work on trademarks and health and wellness now is very importantto people. So it's not just about you know drinking till late
hours of the night. There's also a daytime component to it aswell. Mainland China is of course a big opportunity. We are.
We've been in Chengdu for the past twelve twelve or so years.Shenzhen we have a project under construction now hopefully
opening later this year. So how much is your father stillinvolved. He's the chairman of LKF. He is the brainchild of all
of this. He's still very very involved. He's an old schoolentrepreneur. He grew up in the business.
He doesn't have any hobbies except work. So.So it's pretty straightforward. He is still very involved. And
he likes to especially get involved on the creative side ofthings and the planning
and especially kind of design architecture things like that. Hecomes from the fashion business. So that's important. So did he
strong arm to come on board and take over from him. I come froma small family. Me and my sister
had a great upbringing and I watch my father and my mother growthe business. And I thought it was important to add to the
family business and then to help to grow it and take it to thenext the next level on the next level. Allen Zeman is a
character show dad as a character. He was a big risk taker backin the early 80s. He saw this area Lan Kwai Fong . I believe
this tower with some traditional Chinese supermarket orsomething like that was flower markets and this and that. He had
a vision and took a big risk. I think he borrowed about fourmillion dollars or spent about four million dollars on the first
plot of land and then went from there. Are you a risk taker. Ithink a very expensive city. I think we're both calculated risk
taker and. There's always been Covid the downside of thedownside then it's not so much of a risk. So I think in that
sense we're very similar.And you know for myself bringing my own kind of way of doing
things I think is important. I grew up in Hong Kong. I speakfluent Chinese
and I understand the market very very well.I went to school in the US and came back in a new way of
thinking and went to different parts of the business andcarved out little projects and made those grow and then also
wanted to really systemize things. So taking thisentrepreneurial beast and taming it a little bit and bringing
systems in because with systems and good communication in abusiness then we can grow. All right. So I think that was
important for me from an early age. What legacy do you hope yourfamily will leave on Hong Kong.
I hope that our family can show Hongkongthere's a good way to do business right. It's not all about the
last dollar. It's not all about squeezing everything you can outof things. So as a landlord we have a pretty good reputation in
Hong Kong which is good because some other good landlords herewhich is nice.
And we always look to develop people. So people that come towork for us.
My father's always very proud that some of them have worked forus for 20 years or more.
And they started in the mailroom and kind of worked their way upwhich is exactly what my father did. Someone who was selling
selling dresses and selling give him a break. And then he kindof worked his way up. So I do hope that we can continue to bring
that kind of legacy to Hong Kong and also bring happy memoriesin places like Lan Kwai Fong