• French luxury-goods retailer Hermès sold four stores, totaling 7,500 square feet, at The Galleria, at 9 Queen’s Road, in Hong Kong's Central District to real estate fund Chelsfield Asia for $61.2 million. The transaction “will certainly serve as a benchmark in the core business district,” said Michael Chik, managing director of Sheraton Valuers, speaking to the South China Morning Post. 

• Retailer BreadTalk Singapore will form a venture with Taiwan's Wu Pao Chun Food to expand its chain of bakeries in China. BreadTalk will operate Wu Pao Chun outlets in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen, according to Inside Retail Asia. 

• Singapore retail sales (excluding motor vehicles) declined by 8.1 per cent, year on year in January, attributable in part to weakness at supermarkets and department stores. Sales at supermarkets and hypermarkets contracted by 16.1 per cent from a year earlier, while those at department stores dropped by 14.3 per cent, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

• Sim Lim Square will be Singapore’s first full commercial prime city centre en bloc sale, after a majority of its owners voted to put the property up for an asking price of S$1.1 billion (about $800 million). The 236,900-square-foot, six-level mall is home to 492 stores and directly linked to a mass-transit station, reports Property Guru.

• Sasseur REIT says it aims to be the first outlet retail REIT to be listed in Asia. The REIT, which will have an initial portfolio of four properties in China, plans to list on the Singapore Exchange. "Unlike traditional retailing formats, such as department stores and shopping malls, sales through outlet malls in the People’s Republic of China are experiencing strong growth”, Sasseur REIT said in its preliminary prospectus, as reported in REITs Week.

• Malaysia's retail sales grew by 3.1 per cent year on year in the fourth quarter, thanks to year-end festival and school holiday spending, according to Retail Group Malaysia. For the January-to-March period, Retail Group Malaysia says, retail sales will grow by 5.4 per cent, on the strength of Chinese New Year celebrations, reports Nikkei Asian Review.

• A private fund in Australia purchased nine retail properties and a parking lot in Sydney’s Rozelle neighborhood from Sydney-based Anka Property Group for roughly $8.3 million. The stores are located at street level, beneath some 200 residential units, according to Commercial Real Estate.