Who knew hawker food would make it to the stock market?
One of the best aspects of Singapore is arguably our local food scene— from $2 soft boiled eggs with kaya toasts to Michelin starred pork noodles, you can get a decent meal at any price. Perhaps even more unique are our local coffee shops. Ranging from the most Chinese of Chinese food like siew mai, to Japanese bento sets, coffee shops here are designed to satisfy the everyday cravings of typical Singaporeans.
One of the 4 major hawker businesses in Singapore has decided to up the ante and go a step further in expansion.
Local F&B investment firm specialising in hawker business Kimly Group is seeking to be publicly listed on Singapore Exchange. This will be the first hawker-business listing, with Rajah and Tann are handling the legal paperwork related, and August Consulting handling its announcement.
Kimly Group
They own about more than 70 businesses, from coffee shops, zi char stalls and a central kitchen in Woodlands. The investment holding company has a paid-up capital of $35.4 million with 27 shareholders according to the Straits Times.
Rising Rental Fees
With Kimly trying to be listed, there are concerns about costs for hawker tenants and consumers. Coffee shops in Singapore have already seen a rise in rental. Last year, Bukit Batok’s coffeeshop was sold for a record-breaking $31 million. As a benchmark, rental fees for a cafe at bustling Chip Bee Gardens or at CBD will cost about $30k per month for a 25,000 sq ft area, while a small 200 sq ft rental at a coffee shop can cost up to $11k per month. If you do the math, it’s pretty disproportionate given what cafe and coffee shop owners are working with.
According to Channel Newsasia, a 50 year old-tenant who, refused to be named, saw their rental fees doubling. But coffee shop owners are willing to weigh out the rising costs if they are able to “build their customer base”.
Facing competition and what lies ahead
This move is due to the market intensified competition amongst the 3 remaining players—Kopitiam Group, Chang Cheng Group and Kim San Leng.
Other coffee shop chain owners have reflected that this is an encouraging precedent set for the local food scene. Being publicly listed will help to expand their resources given the nature and difficulty of opening one today. Singaporeans love eating out which keeps this coffee shop business a lucrative one despite heightened competition.
