New | Brazilian developer courts Asian investors with cheap assets amid recession
Firm seeks funds from region by offering attractive returns as nation reels from slowing economy and graft scandal
Brazilian developer Ritz Property is tapping into Asian investors' growing appetite for global investment diversification, offering attractive returns for higher risk as Latin America's biggest economy slips into recession.
The attraction was the weakening Brazilian real, which has lost almost 25 per cent of its value this year, making assets cheaper to acquire, said Arun Rama, the company's managing director in Asia.
"When we first started [three years ago], people only knew two things about Brazil - football and samba," the Singaporean-based Rama told the South China Morning Post.
Rama has been taking investors to Brazil for familiarisation trips for the past two years, with the latest one scheduled for November.
Asians have been a rising force in global real estate investment in recent years but mainly in developed markets such as London, New York and Sydney - seen as safe bets against China's economic slowdown and the region's geopolitical instability.
Risks in Brazil are also on the rise as the government of president Dilma Rousseff struggles to stave off a possible credit rating downgrade to junk status amid falling commodity prices and a growing corruption scandal that has seen some of the country's biggest construction bosses jailed.