Forum Partners sells some real estate assets in Japan to buy in China
British firm bucks the trend by pulling back from Japanese market to focus on Chinese deals
Forum Partners, a global real estate investment and corporate finance firm with about US$6 billion in assets under management, is shifting its investment focus to China and selling assets in Japan.
The chief executive of the British-based firm, Russell Platt, said the mainland could easily account for "40 per cent or more" of its total investment volume in the next few years.
Platt said its US$375 million Asia Realty Income Fund III, raised last year, had a China exposure of about 20 per cent. It invests in small to medium-sized property companies in Asia in need of recapitalisation or repositioning.
Established in 2002, Forum Partners invests in real estate companies that are privately owned and plan to list on stock exchanges. It also invests in real estate securities, such as real estate investment trusts, and debt investments.
Platt said Forum Partners had invested in Japan after the global financial crisis "as prices were down quite a bit", but was now pulling back slightly.
In the first half of this year, investors spent US$10.6 billion buying commercial properties in Japan, up 50 per cent from a year ago, property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle said in a report.
"Everyone is going back to Japan. We are actually selling," Platt said.