Real estate | Midland says temporary closures due to licensing problem

Midland Realty – a real estate agency operating in Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China – was forced to temporarily close its office and suspend services in Macau this week following a delay in the renewal of its business license.
The license reportedly expired on June 30, and the company’s five Macau branches have to close their doors in the meantime.
“The licensing is currently going through the approval procedure,” the company said in an email statement, “and we are confident that it will be solved very shortly.”
Services will only resume in the Macau branches once the company’s license is approved, but the representative stressed that Midland is not closing shop in the MSAR.
“We have already said that we hope that they [the officials] can expedite the process and that the company will not be exiting the market in Macau,” the representative noted.
According to the company, the 60 or so staff employed in Macau have not been affected by the temporary closure, since the offices also serve clients in mainland China and are able to focus on that market during the waiting period.
“The number of successful transactions in Macau is very low,” a media representative told the Times via email. “It [the office] has always been [equally] responsible for our business in Zhuhai and Jinan, and our staff have been working more in these areas in recent years. [Therefore] the impact to the company will be minimal.”
“If this has caused any inconvenience to any customers, then we apologize for that,” the representative continued. “According to the information we currently have, there have been no customers impacted [by the temporary closures].”
Midland Macau opened its first branch in 2004 and claims to be the first real estate agent from Hong Kong to settle in the MSAR. Listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, its parent company Midland Realty provides an array of real estate-related services including brokering, surveying, project planning and lease and property management. Midland Realty caters to local communities as well as non-Chinese-­speaking expatriates in China.