Hillhouse Investment Real Assets Division Rebrands as Rava Partners

Four years after setting up a dedicated real estate division and a year and a half after closing on $2 billion in capital for that strategy, Hillhouse Investment has given its property division an independent identity as Rava Partners, according to a person familiar with the internal workings of the two Singapore-based firms.

The company, which has led investments in China’s JD Property and Singapore logistics startup EZA Hill in its young history, continues to be led by former Warburg Pincus executive Joe Gagnon and Hillhouse veteran Carl Ge, with the pair serving as Rava’s co-heads.

“Rava’s team are experts in real assets who partner with quality business leaders to build the physical infrastructure that will underpin Asia Pacific’s new economy,” the person said, adding that the company benefits from Hillhouse’s entrepreneurial heritage, sector knowledge and proprietary research.

Focused on teaming with capable entrepreneurs to grow real estate businesses in high-growth market segments, Rava has been most active in China, Southeast Asia, Australia and India while targeting opportunities across Asia Pacific, including Japan and Korea.

Regional Portfolio

Founded by Zhang Lei in 2005 with seed capital from the Yale University Endowment, Hillhouse launched the Rava real assets strategy nearly four years ago in collaboration with Gagnon and Ge.

Since then, Rava has made commitments totalling more than $2.5 billion across a portfolio of more than 15 real asset businesses in the Asia Pacific region. Its portfolio companies include Asia Cold, a cold storage operator in China; EZA Hill, which develops industrial and business park assets in Southeast Asia; and Table Space, a co-working provider in India.

Rava describes its strategy as partnering with high-quality CEOs and firms at the forefront of Asia’s new economy to build businesses that address structural supply imbalances, rather than adopting the opportunistic “buy-fix-sell” approach favoured by many of its peers. Rather than targeting assets for acquisition and rent collection, the team’s strategy focuses on growth companies with IPO potential.

Having grown from a pair of founders to a team of more than 30 people, Rava is active in China under the local leadership of Yan Yan, a former Blackstone managing director, and in India under Alta Capital founder Siddhartha Gupta, whose firm is Rava’s exclusive operating partner in the market. Rava is also pursuing opportunities in Southeast Asia, Japan and Australia.

Singapore Industrial Buy

Mingtiandi revealed last October that Rava-backed EZA Hill had joined forces with China’s JD Property to acquire a portfolio of five Singapore industrial assets from ESR-Logos REIT for S$313.5 million ($232 million). In June, Mingtiandi had identified Hillhouse’s real estate team as a buyer in the deal.

Hillhouse and Warburg Pincus teamed up to lead a $700 million investment in JD Property, a unit of online commerce giant JD.com, in 2021. Hillhouse had over $100 billion in assets under management at the end of that year. In August 2022, Hillhouse closed on $2 billion for its inaugural real estate fund, targeting investments in new-economy-related property assets and platforms across Asia Pacific.

During his time at Warburg Pincus, Gagnon helped lead the establishment of major property platforms in the region including ESR, Weave and 7 Days hotels.