C-Suite Q&A: Asset manager EBA identifies opportunities in a traditionally low-yielding sector in China

Zhou Songming, the vice-president of EBA Asset Management and general-manager of the IMIX brand, is a 15-year veteran of China’s commercial real estate industry.

Before this, he was general-manager at FPD Raycom, a joint venture property management consultancy between Raycom Real Estate and Savills. Zhou also served as managing director of Savills West China and has directly managed shopping centres in Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing and Ningbo. He has a master’s degree in business administration from Guanghua Management School, Peking University, and an EMBA degree from Fudan University.

Briefly introduce EBA?

EBA Asset Management is the real estate investment platform of China Everbright Limited. It has focused on private equity investment in China’s property market for more than 10 years, providing a highly experienced team with management capabilities in private equity real estate funds.

The IMIX Park commercial real estate brand created by EBA Asset Management now has operations in Chongqing, Shanghai and Beijing. We run, or are building eight projects, and the number is expected to reach 10 by the end of the year.

What’s EBA’s comparative advantage over other real estate private equity funds?

We have a very strong management team, made up of industry veterans with working experience at leading developers, while ordinary funds don’t. At the point of entering, we’ve already figured out the route through which we can add value to the project, the value three or five years later, and rental yield. On the other hand, compared to commercial real estate developers, we as a fund are more flexible and have more financial expertise.