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Posh Club Ku De Ta is a prostitution joint?
- Thread starter BuiKia
- Start date
SINGAPORE, June 5, 2015 : Prominent nightspot Ku De Ta, housed on the 57th floor of Singapore's Marina Bay Sands hotel complex, has been replaced by new entertainment entity Ce La Vi.
The nightclub was given two weeks from a Court of Appeal ruling issued on May 25 to stop using the Ku De Ta name, after a five-year legal tussle with the partners of the Bali beachfront club that started using the Ku De Ta name in 2000. This followed a court ruling in December, which deemed that Nine Squares, the licensor of the Ku De Ta trademark in Singapore, did not own the trademark.
L Capital, the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy-backed Asian private equity firm that has a controlling stake in the Singapore nightclub, unveiled the new brand on Thursday, along with the announcement of a Ce La Vi outlet to be opened next month on the top three floors of Hong Kong's recently refurbished California Tower in the Lan Kwai Fong dining and entertainment district.
Abbreviated from the French "c'est la vie", or "this is life", Ce La Vi aims to become "the international titan of lifestyle and sophisticated hedonism", L Capital said.
Ravi Thakran, L Capital Asia managing partner, clarified that the exercise is "not a rebranding", but a year-long process that started with the firm's majority acquisition of the nightspot.
"When we entered, we realised it's a good concept that does well in Asia but given our LVMH standards of building brand icons and the elements with which we build them, Ku De Ta was only at 60 to 65 per cent of what we wanted to see."
Creating new brands was something they had previously done for L Capital's portfolio companies such as Trendy International and Xinhee, and would give the nightspot a clean slate, said Mr Thakran. Besides the lawsuit over the use of its name, Ku De Ta's former shareholders were also tangled in a legal battle among themselves over the distribution of proceeds from L Capital's S$1 million investment.
"We always expect that partners may have tug of war, it's normal in some cases. But they sat down and settled things," said Mr Thakran, adding that L Capital had indemnity against the legal disputes throughout. "Our only concern was that the brand that we had made all the effort in investing in was being maligned to some extent by the bad press.
"When building a world class brand, what you don't want is confused consumers and partners under litigation. So forget about all that legacy, we want to build something new and fresh and fantastic. I believe this is a brand that will stay resilient and will be sustainable, whether in Miami, London, Tokyo, Bangkok, Dubai or Singapore. Consistency of delivery is the key pillar of the luxury industry."
L Capital Asia has since upped its stake in the luxury nightlife and entertainment entity to "just under 60 per cent" and changes have been made systematically, from management team changes to minute branding tweaks.
Ce La Vi chief executive Kirk Martin spent over three decades at DFS, LVMH's duty-free retail powerhouse, while marketing veteran Sara Paz has been tapped as the brand's global marketing director. Nobu-trained executive chef Frederic Faucheux will stay on to lead the Singapore kitchen team, Iron Chef Thailand winner Jason Licker will take on the role of corporate executive pastry chef and Swedish-born Knut Randhem will head the mixology programme.
"We're never in a hurry to change management, we have many assets where 100 per cent of the management is intact, but when building a new brand, you need to start with the best team possible. People are the best investment you can make in a business," Mr Thakran explained.
The outlet in the Marina Bay Sands Skypark in Singapore will undergo a significant renovation by August to get the nightclub to a "100 per cent execution of what we wished to see when we entered", said Mr Thakran. A bold five-year expansion plan has been charted to take the Ce La Vi brand to other key urban cities across the world. Talks for venues in Dubai and Taipei are already in the works, which may take about a year to launch.
Another Ku De Ta outlet on the rooftop of Sathorn Square in Bangkok that opened in January 2014 has also been renamed Ce La Vi, but it is "not even at 60 per cent" of expectations, said Mr Thakran, whose team is in the midst of identifying an alternative venue for Ce La Vi in Bangkok.
The target is to have at least one new venue a year to build a truly global brand, he added.
Mr Thakran said that besides iconic rooftop locations offering panoramic vistas in each city, the brand DNA for Ce La Vi will revolve around four other core pillars: Asian-inspired architectural design; innovative modern Asian cuisine and cocktail mixology; and an entertainment line-up comprising local and international DJs.
"At the end of the day, a name is a name - until someone creates a product," said Mr Thakran. "It's the product, the service, the delight you give and the experience that your customer cannot forget for life - that is what a brand is."
Source: debyong@sph com sg, The Business Times @ Singapore Press Holdings Ltd
Fresh girls from China Dolls yang bersedap !:p
definitely not golden cheebyes from spg's which will require a heavy wrench to ply open.
Also, Pinky Loong wanted the casinos. Where the casinos are, the prostitutes always follow.
It is a symbiotic co-existence. It is true in any part of the world.
You can't have 'integrated resorts' without 'integrated groins'.
Casinoes, money laundering, and prostitution go together inextricably, just like the brain cannot survive without the spinal chord
Same shit in glam packing? :p
Renamed CE LA VI 
And pocket money!
