Wellcome operator DFI Retail seeks buyer for fully leased shopping centre on The Peak

DFI Retail, the food and beverage unit of Hong Kong-headquartered conglomerate Jardine Matheson, is looking to sell its mall at The Peak, one of the city’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.

The entire commercial portion of the Dairy Farm Guildford Road Shopping Centre will be sold via a public tender closing at noon on November 19, according to sole agent CBRE.

The property is near The Peak campus of the German Swiss International School. The mall consists of a two-storey retail podium with a gross floor area of about 8,974 square feet (834 square metres), together with multiple car parking spaces.

The shopping centre is currently 100 per cent leased out to various tenants including Wellcome Supermarket, real estate agencies and a cafe among others.

The property’s location was “supported by an exceptionally affluent resident base, plus about 1,300 students and families from the German-Swiss International School from more than 30 different countries around the world, providing strong and sustainable spending power for the property’s retail offerings”, said Avan Pau, senior director of CBRE Hong Kong capital markets.

In addition, about 200 affluent families were anticipated to move into the area after the ultra-luxury residential development at Mansfield Road, led by Wheelock Properties, was completed in 2028, Pau said. This would further strengthen local spending power and enhance the long-term retail and commercial value of the property, Pau added.

DFI Retail is also set to take over more than 1,100 Starbucks outlets across Asia as part of a deal with Maxim’s Caterers, in which the latter would buy back 50 per cent of its stake held by the Jardine Matheson unit.

Jardine Matheson bought a 50 per cent interest in Maxim’s in 1972, before transferring the stake to Dairy Farm, now known as DFI Retail. The Wu family retains 50 per cent of the business via the company Hongkong Caterers.

Hong Kong’s retail market is on a path of gradual recovery. Sales in the first eight months of the year rose 8.5 per cent compared with the same period in 2025, according to provisional figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Friday.