2010AWARDS & AnnuAL REVIEW - PERE

PERE FORuM | ASIA
(L to R) Richard Price, Cheng-Soon Lau, Goodwin Gaw, John Saunders, Jason Lee
Jing Ulrich
Ronnie Chan
More than money
domestic capital continued to boom in markets like
China, prompting international fund managers to
demonstrate what else they could bring to the table
International GPs must rely on their real estate expertise rather than their equity
resources if they are to compete with the more prominent domestic investors in
Asia, delegates at PERE’s third annual forum in Hong Kong were told.
Indeed, that was the view of a panel of GPs after they were questioned about
how they could compete with capital-rich domestic buyers. “It’s about what else
you can bring to the table other than cash,” said John Saunders, managing director
for the Asia portfolio at MGPA. “We have focused on where we can bring
skills such as development, planning, leasing and management.”
Richard Price, chief executive officer for ING Real Estate Investment Management,
highlighted the additional challenge faced by international firms, which
must meet their fiduciary duties but, as a result, can lose out on investments to
local buyers with no such constraints.
Some small comfort came from the words of MGPA’s chairman Jim Quille,
who labeled the surge of investors moving from general partnerships to club investment
structures as a preserve of the very largest institutions, not the masses.
Ben Sanderson Jonathan Brasse interviews Jim Quille