More Chinese retailers 'eyeing London'

London will see an influx of Chinese retailers over the next few years, with as many as five looking for stores, including fashion retailers JNBY, Li-Ning and luxury menswear brand Eve Enterprise Group, research from international real estate agent Savills showed on Thursday.

According to Peter Thomas, director of central London retail at Savills, the potential for Chinese retail expansion in the UK came to the attention of London agents with the first entrant, Bosideng, in July 2011.

"While its one of China's largest clothing companies, our research has shown that it only ranked sixth domestically in terms of annual retail sales, meaning that while it was one of the first to land in London, it certainly won't be one of the last to take a store here," said Thomas.

Savills reports that of the retailers with the highest annual turnover, several, including JNBY and Li-Ning, have already begun expansion into Europe and the US.

To put the strength of the top Chinese retailers into context, the firm has compared their annual turnover with that of recently expanding American retailers, J Crew, which has just announced its first UK store will be on Regent Street, a prime shopping location, and Forever 21. The two companies have annual global turnovers of approximately £990 million (about $1580 million) and £800 million respectively. In comparison, China's top seven retailers have annual turnovers of more than £850 million. For five of these brands that only takes into account their turnover in China.

"There is a long list of strong Chinese brands that have begun to look into global expansion and London has a strong appeal due to its reputation as an international shopping destination," said Nick Bradstreet, deputy managing director of Savills in Hong Kong.