Sembawang Music Centre to close

CD shop chain filing for bankruptcy after succumbing to rising rents and poor business
By Shuli Sudderuddin

It has been a mainstay in the music retail industry here for more than 20 years, but Sembawang Music Centre will soon sing its swansong.

The plug is being pulled after the CD shop chain succumbed to rising rents and poor business.

Said owner and founder Dave Boo, 56: ‘We’ve liquidated the company and are filing for bankruptcy. Right now, all our energy is on clearing our stock and making as many sales as we can.’

He declined to say how much he owes creditors, adding only that it is very little.

Sembawang’s three outlets at Raffles City, Thomson Plaza and Plaza Singapura are holding sales touting 75 per cent savings.

The outlet at Plaza Singapura will be the last to close, in a few weeks’ time.

Mr Boo started the company in 1986 at age 33 as he was an avid music lover.

It was a small record store in Sembawang, patronised largely by soldiers from New Zealand who were stationed nearby.

Over time, the business grew. In 2004, Sembawang Music Centre was Singapore’s largest music retail chain, generating about $20 million in turnover.

That year, it became a listed company.

At its peak, it had 24 outlets.

Looking back, Mr Boo said: ‘We expanded too fast. In about 2005 or 2006, I bought the business back from the oil and gas company which owned it.’

The oil and gas firm had offered money for expansion and became a shareholder.

‘I started shutting down the outlets that were not doing so well,’ said Mr Boo after he regained control.

The strategy was not enough to save the chain.

‘Rents were too high. In Sembawang, I used to pay $4,000 to $6,000 for a 1,000 sq ft shop. For a 600 sq ft place in Raffles City, I now pay about $10,000 to $12,000 a month,’ he said.

And the industry is declining.

In April, The Sunday Times reported that sales at Sembawang Music Centre had shrunk by about 20 per cent every year since 2003.

Another music retailer, HMV, is moving to a smaller 12,000 sq ft store at 313@Somerset from its current 17,000 sq ft space at The Heeren.

Music giant Tower Records closed in 2006, leaving other brands like Gramophone and That CD Shop to fight for market share.

‘There are so many formats of media available now. People can just download music and movies and they don’t have to buy them any more. We couldn’t survive like that,’ Mr Boo said.

However, he credits his staff for maintaining their fighting spirit to the very end.

He said wistfully: ‘Right now, we are trying to sell all we can. I can’t think of anything beyond this, but once the last shop closes, hopefully someone will hire me as an employee.’

Certainly, buyers like Mr Daniel Ong, 29, a research scientist, will miss Sembawang.

‘I find that it’s cheaper than the bigger chains and it also carries more Chinese and Japanese music than other stores,’ he said.

‘There are so many formats of media available now. People can just download music and movies and they don’t have to buy them any more. We couldn’t survive like that.’

MR DAVE BOO, owner and founder of Sembawang Music Centre

Yes, that's my grandpa buried under the pavement


EARLIER this year, joggers at Mount Faber would gawk at Mr Henry Koh as he prayed and scattered joss paper in the middle of a paved walkway leading to Henderson Waves.
By Crystal Chan
10 August 2009

EARLIER this year, joggers at Mount Faber would gawk at Mr Henry Koh as he prayed and scattered joss paper in the middle of a paved walkway leading to Henderson Waves.

His grandfather was buried under the pavement, he insisted.

But NParks had said in April that a survey of the area had turned up no graves before the construction of the pavement.

It turned out Mr Koh was right – his grandfather’s remains were indeed buried in the vicinity of the pavement.

The remains were exhumed on 29 Jul.

On Wednesday, the Kohs gathered on a chartered bumboat and scattered the carbonised remains of Mr Koh’s grandfather, Koh Eng Chang, into the sea off Changi Point Ferry Terminal.

Dressed in a Taoist prayer costume, Mr Koh, 46, a sales executive, told The New Paper on Sunday: ‘At last, we can close this matter and my grandfather can rest in peace.’

With him was his cousin, Mrs Diana See, a hawker in her 40s, and two of his sisters.

The New Paper on Sunday reported on 26 Apr that Mr Koh had been haphazardly buried near his home in Mount Faber after he was shot dead by invading Japanese troops in February 1942.

His descendants made offerings at his tomb almost every year until 2005, when the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) closed off the surrounding area to develop Henderson Waves, a 1.6km elevated walkway above Henderson Road.

It is part of a series of pedestrian links that make up the 9km Southern Ridges, stretching from Mount Faber to Kent Ridge.

It was only when the bridges were completed in April last year that the family decided to visit the site again.

And that was when they discovered that their grandfather’s tomb was missing from its original spot at the start of the Southern Ridges.

Mr Koh said: ‘We consulted a gravedigger, but he said he couldn’t do anything as the land belongs to the Government and we need the relevant authorities to help us.’

The Kohs continued to burn joss paper at the spot where Mr Koh’s grandfather was supposedly buried, but felt they could not let his remains stay under the concrete pavement permanently.

A sign

Mr Koh said: ‘We often dreamt of our grandfather and he kept telling us that people were walking all over him in the park. We took the dream as a sign that we had to act on his last rites.’

When The New Paper on Sunday approached NParks in April to comment on Mr Koh’s situation, an official had said that it could not confirm his claims as ‘a pre-construction survey was carried out before building the bridge and there were no graves in the area’.

In late April, the Kohs wrote to NParks, which manages the Southern Ridges, seeking permission to exhume the spot.

On 28 Jun, NParks told Mr Koh that it had no objection to the exhumation as long as the trees and shrubs in the park were not damaged.

The digging would also have to be done manually as machines would not be allowed in the park, said NParks.

The statutory board also said the size of the hoardings used to close up the spot should be limited to 3m by 3m as the pavement is 8m wide. This would allow park users to continue access to the area.

The Kohs consulted a geomancer who told them that it would be auspicious to do the exhumation between 3am and 6am on 29 Jul.

The geomancer also told the family that the remains had to be disposed of within three days of being recovered.

On 8 Jul, the family applied to the National Environment Agency for an exhumation permit and it was granted.

The family hired a granite constructor to do the excavation, which was supervised by NEA officers.

After using shovels to dig more than 2m into the ground, the remains were uncovered and inspected by NEA officers, who told the Kohs they could proceed to scatter these into the sea.

NParks didn’t say why the previous pre-construction survey missed the grave.

Mr Henry Koh said: ‘We dreamt about our grandfather on previous occasions and he told us that if we ever dig up his remains, we were to scatter these into the sea.’

Hong Kong’s incredible shrinking flats revealed

Hong Kong’s incredible shrinking flats revealed
Olga Wong and Joyce Ng
SCMP Sep 27, 2009

Buyers of flats in Hong Kong are getting less and less for their money as common areas included in the floor area quoted by developers eat into their living space.

Because of this practice – described by the head of a leading property agency as a “trick” to lower flats’ price per square foot – their actual size has shrunk by as much as 22 per cent since the 1980s. For example, a new flat listed as being 700 sq ft has only as much space as a 530 sq ft flat built in the 1980s.

In many cases buyers do not know what common areas they are paying for. While price lists and sales brochures list lift lobbies and clubhouses as examples of common areas, others are never disclosed. They include architectural features, planters, space for watchmen, rooftops, pathways to car parks and covered walkways, say architects and surveyors who have worked in the field for more than 20 years.

Some developers are even charging buyers for “green” features the government has exempted from a building’s gross floor area in an effort to make developments more environment-friendly.

The efficiency rate of new flats – gross floor area divided by internal floor area – is as low as 68 per cent.

Shih Wing-ching, chairman of property agency Centaline Holdings, described the practice as a developers’ trick to lower the apparent price of the flat.

“The larger the flat’s size, the lower the per-square-foot price,” he said.

Consumer Council chief executive Connie Lau Yin-hing said it was time to tell consumers exactly what they were buying.

“After all, buyers expect to pay only for what they can enjoy, and they need to pay for the maintenance of the common areas too,” Lau said.

The Sunday Morning Post commissioned a study of the efficiency rates of 23 housing estates built since 1980. The estates covered were built by several big developers, and include the city’s 10 biggest residential developments.

Data collected from developers, banks and the Rating and Valuation Department show the efficiency rates of estates built in the 1980s – including Taikoo Shing in Eastern district, and Whampoa Garden and Telford Garden in Kowloon – are as high as 90 per cent, meaning a flat’s internal floor area is 90 per cent of its gross floor area. (Gross floor area – a flat’s interior plus an apportioned share of common areas – is crucial because developers and buyers alike base their calculation of a flat’s price per square foot on it.)

The efficiency rate began to drop in the 1990s, when it fell to around 80 per cent, and the trend has continued. Flats built in the past 10 years are only 70 to 75 per cent efficient. The rate is even lower on some of the newest estates. At Victoria Towers in Tsim Sha Tsui, developed by Cheung Kong (Holdings), the rate is as low as 68 per cent; at Island Resort in Chai Wan, developed by Sino Land, it is as low as 69 per cent.

Using the latest definition for saleable area endorsed by the government, the efficiency rates of estates sold this year are just above 70 per cent.

It ranges from 71 per cent to 73 per cent for the flats of Silver Lake at Wu Kai Sha, in the northeastern New Territories; at Le Prestige in Lohas Park, part of the new town of Tseung Kwan O, the rate is 75 per cent. If balconies and utility platforms are taken out of the calculations, the efficiency rates at these estates are between 68 per cent and 72 per cent.

While the government has endorsed guidelines issued by the Real Estate Developers Association concerning the definition of a home’s saleable area, no attempt has been made to standardise the meaning of gross floor area.

The government and the association admit there is no standardised definition of gross floor area, meaning developers are free to include whatever they want in a building’s common area. Although developers are now required to inform buyers about the amount of common area included in a flat’s gross floor area, they are not required to provide an exhaustive list of the common area’s constituent parts.

Common areas account for as much as 22 per cent of gross floor area in newly completed estates, our research shows.

“Having controlled the saleable area, it’s time for the next step,” said Raymond Chan Yuk-ming, chairman of the public and social affairs committee of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors.

He proposes limiting the types of common area that can be included.

“It would be more reasonable if owners were asked to pay for facilities that they really appreciate and enjoy,” he said.

Louis Loong Hon-biu, secretary general of the developers association, said common facilities add value to estates and therefore to flats.

Shih, of Centaline, said the government should set a definition of gross floor area.

Developer Swire Properties said it would welcome a standardised definition of gross floor area since it would enhance transparency and consistency.

A spokeswoman for Cheung Kong (Holdings) said the company followed association guidelines.

Despite the controversy, owners who buy flats “off plan” – meaning before they are built – and only find out later how small they are seldom complain.

Sai Kung district councillor Chan Kai-wai said he had received complaints about flats sold in Tseung Kwan O, but the buyers refused to talk to the media.

“Who would undermine the resale value of their own property,” he asked.