SM Investments Corp., the holding company of retail tycoon Henry Sy, plans to list a unit of SM Prme Holdings that operates malls in China over the next five years. SM Investments chief finance officer Jose Sio told reporters that  the company was considering the Singapore, Shanghai or Hong Kong stock exchanges for the listing of the China Mall operations.

'Nothing is definite yet, including the corporate name. It is a vision and we are planning for the future,'Sio said.

SM Investments through SM Prime Holdings operates three SM Malls in Xiamen and Jinjiang in southern China and Chendu in the central region. It set to open a new mall in Suzhou next year.

SM Prime units Mega Make Enterprise Limited (BVI) owns the SM Xiamen and Chengdu malls and Affluent Capital Enterprises Ltd. operates SM Jinjiang, SM Land (China) Ltd. HK, meanwhile, holds mall properties in Chongqing, Suzhou and Zibo.

SM Prime plans to eventually restructure its China Investments and consolidate all assets in SM Land China in preparation for an eventual initial public offering and listing overseas.

SM Prime earlier said it planned to open one mall every year from 2010 to 2014 before aggressively expanding to other areas in China.

SM Prime chief finance officer Jeffrey Lim earlier said the company's main expansion would remain in the Philippines. The company plans to open five more malls next year. These are SM City Novaliches in Quezon City, SM City Tarlac in Tarlac Province, SM Supercenter Masinag in Antipolo City, and SM City Calamba and SM Supercenter San Pablo in Laguna.
 

Lim however, said SM Prime's long-term growth would be driven by China operations as it slowly builds its network of shopping malls in the one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

SM Prime reported an 8% increase in net income in the first half of the year to P3.4 billion from P3.2 billion year-on-year.