NewUS property firm Tishman Speyer takes Chinese partners offshore
After nine years building ties on the mainland, the US property company is taking its Chinese partners overseas in their expansion campaign
Almost a decade's careful cultivation of relationships in China is giving United States property firm Tishman Speyer access to billions of dollars of financing as China Inc begins diversifying its portfolios abroad through acquisitions.
Last month, the country's two biggest insurers - China Life Insurance and Ping An Insurance (Group) - became the major partners of a joint-venture redevelopment project in Boston, where Tishman Speyer is taking the lead to build a 13-storey office compound and a nine-storey 100-unit condominium tower with completion scheduled in 2018.
"We will certainly consider further cooperation with them," said Tishman Speyer senior managing director and China country head Ryan Botjer. "This is the beginning of a process of significant Chinese capital going offshore."
The Boston project marked the two Chinese insurers' first foray into the US real estate market, but not Tishman Speyer's first tie-up with Chinese companies.
The US firm entered China in 2006 and has developed more than four million sq ft of space, with a further 20 million sq ft in the development pipeline.
Tishman Speyer sold a grade A office tower in its second mixed-use project in Chengdu to Ping An in 2012.
"We've known the senior management in the organisation for a while," Botjer said. "I think the Boston investment is an extension of that relationship offshore. It is a relationship that we hope to continue to grow."