All the top news is in the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's leading English language newspaper. Just before Christmas they reported the exciting news that the Marks & Spencer store in Pacific Place will be closing down in June.  It's obviously important because they returned to the story the following day, and again last Sunday!

The story is that Swire Properties have decided not to renew their lease:

British-based Marks & Spencer is to close its flagship store in the biggest shopping mall in Admiralty, and property-market observers believe the staid image of the retailer does not meet the landlord's requirement for trendy tenants.

After operating the store in Pacific Place for about 15 years, M&S said it would close in June because landlord Swire Properties did not renew its lease.

The space, over two floors, will be occupied by Spanish fashion retailer Zara and a number of other brands.

The SCMP returned to the story the following day with a waffly leader on the subject, and then again last Sunday, this time with the theory that Mainlanders prefer big name stores and aren't interested in dowdy old M&S.  The man from M&S was upset by this assertion, and said that "a careful observer can tell who is a Mainlander" and that they "do spend a lot of money in our stores".  He also claims that Mainlanders prefer M&S because they stock larger sizes, which seems to be making a virtue out of their biggest weakness - I can't help feeling that M&S would do better here if they stocked more smaller sizes for the local population.

This is all speculation, isn't it?  I doubt that anyone has asked people who shop in Pacific Place (or future visitors from the Mainland or elsewhere) whether the idea of shopping in M&S attracts or repels them.  Fortunately for the SCMP, there are plenty of people willing to offer their opinions on what is wrong with M&S and why Swire made this decision, so it filled several column inches with pointless speculation.  All I can say is that must have been a very slow news day.   

Perhaps the only interesting thing about this story is that it tells us that Swire must be very bullish about the prospects for Pacific Place. You don't eject a high profile retailer such as M&S unless you're very confident that you can make better use of the space.  Of course, M&S is not as high profile here as it is in the UK, where (even if they are having problems) there would be no question of any shopping centre wanting to get rid of them.  However Swire obviously feel that Pacific Place can manage very well without M&S, and they're probably right.

I think M&S would probably admit that they haven't been as successful in Hong Kong as they had hoped.  Nearly 4 years ago they announced plans to find a local partner who would run the business as a franchise (which is I think what they do in the rest of Asia) but they abandoned that plan and instead "localised" the management to cut costs.  At least two of their stores (Plaza Hollywood and Festival Walk) have been shrunk, and I don't think they've opened any new stores since then.  So perhaps it will suit them to move out of Pacific Place and open a smaller store somewhere (cheaper) nearby.

That's not such a good story, though.