Nuveen, Link REIT, Brookfield and C&W Open MTD TV Office Forum on Tuesday

With interest rates on the rise globally, sales of office assets in Asia Pacific fell 45 percent in the third quarter, compared to a year ago, however, some investors see the market shift creating new opportunities for repricing and new acquisitions as we head into the new year.

The transformation of the Asia’s office market, and what to expect as the region heads into 2023 will  be the focus of Mingtiandi’s second annual Office Strategies Forum, which starts next week with a panel on core investment strategies.

The first session in the forum, which sponsored by Yardi, will feature top executives from American asset manager Nuveen, Hong Kong-listed Link REIT, Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management and global property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield, in a live view session beginning 10:00 AM Hong Kong time on 15 November.

The panel on Tuesday, is the lead session in the three-part forum, and will be followed by a panel on value-add and opportunistic strategies on 17 November, and a session on the future of the office on 22 November.

Banking On Resiliency

Representing Nuveen in the core strategies panel will be the firm’s chief investment officer and head of Asia Pacific real estate, Louise Kavanagh. The Chicago-based investment giant has made offices one of the target sectors for the $2 billion Asia Pacific Cities Fund it launched in 2018, alongside logistics and residential.

That core APAC fund participated in one of Singapore’s largest office acquisitions of the past year, when it teamed with JP Morgan Asset Management to pick up One George Street in Raffles Place for $944 million in December.

Link REIT’s chief investment officer for strategic investment Kenny Lam is also joining the panel to share his insights and experiences with Asia’s largest REIT. In June, the Hong Kong-listed trust closed on a A$596 million (then $428.2 million) deal that gave it ownership of a half stake in a portfolio of office assets in Sydney and Melbourne.

Also among the crew is Brookfield senior vice president for real estate portfolio management Yiwen Yang. Holding core assets in markets across the region, Brookfield was reported late last month to be locked in exclusive negotiations to acquire the Meguro Gajoen office complex in Tokyo in a $1.2 billion deal.

To provide a broader view of where the APAC office market is heading, Gordon Marsden, a regional director for APAC capital markets at Cushman & Wakefield who advises major fund managers and developers across the region, will be providing his perspective.

Office real estate has stayed resilient even as investors have become more cautious in the face of caution reigned across asset classes in the region, according to a recent report by Cushman and Wakefield. In Singapore the property consultancy expects rents to grow by 2 to 4 percent in 2023 after climbing by around 6 percent this year.

Value-Add Up Next

Following the core strategies panel, on Thursday 17 November, a group of leading investors and service providers will be joining MTD TV for an hour long discussion exploring outlook for value-add and opportunistic office strategies in the region.

Mingtiandi founder and managing director Michael Cole is set to interview the panel led by Francis Li, international director, vice president and Capital Markets head for Greater China at Cushman & Wakefield and David Green-Morgan, head of real assets research at MSCI.

Also joining the group are Alyssa Partners managing partner and CEO Chedli Boujellabia and Invesco Real Estate managing director and investment strategist for Asia Pacific Thomas Au.

Wrapping up the series is a Future of the Office panel on 22 November, led by Nadia Zhu, regional managing director for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan for The Executive Centre, Claude Touikan, co-founder and executive director with architecture and design firm Lead8, Eric Schaffer, chief executive of essensys and Anshul Jain, Cushman & Wakefield’s managing director for India and Southeast Asia.

Delving deeper into the “flight-to-quality” trend, the final discussion will explore how office owners, designers and property professionals are creating workspaces to meet tenant demands for flexibility, sustainability and amenities.

The Asia Office Strategies Forum is MTD TV’s final series for 2022, wrapping up a set of 31 discussions across six forums.

After garnering over 4,000 live viewers for its online forums and more than 200 attendees for its on-location Singapore event in September, MTD TV will be back in March next year with its annual APAC residential forum.