SOHO to increase Beijing holdings to 50%

SOHO China, a Hong Kong-listed property developer that specializes in commercial property, intends to hold half its property in Shanghai and half in Beijing, the company's chairman said on Thursday.

Pan Shiyi made this comment when explaining that SOHO had sold out three projects in Shanghai last year.

"As we found that our holding property had reached 75 percent in Shanghai and only 25 percent in Beijing, we decided to restructure our portfolio to achieve a 50-50 split in both Beijing and Shanghai," said Pan.

The vacancy rate in the company's Qianmen project — SOHO's first self-holding commercial project — will be down to 10 percent by the end of 2014, Pan forecast.

"And we've entered into an initial agreement with Apple Inc to introduce an Apple store to Qianmen," he added.