Singapore’s US$744 billion sovereign wealth fund GIC is considering investments in Chinese property assets
- GIC recently struck deals in commercial areas like logistics, and is confident that the Chinese government can contain the fallout from the property crackdown
- GIC’s equity holdings included China Vanke, the nation’s second-biggest developer, according to Bloomberg data as of September
Singapore’s US$744 billion sovereign wealth fund sees potential opportunities to do deals and buy debt in China’s battered real estate sector, confident Beijing won’t let things “spiral out of control” following several defaults.
“We continue to have confidence that it is a good investment market for us,” said Lim Chow-Kiat, chief executive officer of GIC. “We are not moving away from being involved in the Chinese real estate market.”
GIC, which has been investing in Chinese property for two decades, is also seeing potential in the hard-hit sector. The fund has recently struck deals in commercial areas like logistics, and is confident that the Chinese government can contain the fallout from the property crackdown.
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“We believe they have enough central bank balance sheet, and within their system they have enough levers to make sure that things do not spiral out of control,” Lim said in an interview from his Singapore office.
When asked if it’s time to go bigger in the space, Lim said it could be, while warning that investors have to be selective about the developers they work with. GIC’s equity holdings included China Vanke, the nation’s second-biggest developer, according to Bloomberg data as of September.
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“When the market goes through a significant change it could throw up opportunities for long-term investors,” said Lim, who has led GIC for almost five years. “We have been looking at them closely.”
Liew Tzu Mi, head of fixed income at GIC, later added that the fund was looking at “potential opportunities” in Chinese property bonds given “the emergence of value in some parts of the market.” She said that investments would be driven by bottom-up evaluations of credit names.
Liew is also bullish on Chinese sovereign debt, which has risen in tandem with the country’s growing influence. China’s government bonds have jumped 7.3 per cent this year, among the biggest gainers of 46 sovereign markets tracked by Bloomberg.
“We have been actually invested for a long time already,” Liew said, drawn to the bonds’ relative high yields and low correlation with global markets. “You can infer that we really like that market.”
“Structurally, it definitely has a place in our portfolio,” Lim added. “Probably a bigger place down the road.”
GIC, created 40 years ago to help manage the city state’s reserves, doesn’t publish its assets, though they are estimated at about US$744 billion by research firm Global SWF. About 34 per cent of the fund’s assets were in Asia, including Japan, as of March.
