Gaw Capital Raises $900M for Asia Education, Property Deals

An artist’s rendering of the Stellart International School in Guangzhou

Hong Kong-based property investment firm Gaw Capital Partners has won a fresh investment mandate totaling $900 million, the company announced in a statement this week.

The capital commitment, which comes from an unnamed institutional investor, will be divided between two separate funds targeting education and real estate opportunities respectively, according to a Gaw representative.

Building Art Schools in Guangzhou

For the education vehicle, Gaw is looking to partner with school operators in major Asian cities targeting premium international or bilingual education programs.

Christina Gaw of Gaw Capital

The fund aims to work with education operators through acquisitions or greenfield and brownfield development of properties in the region. According to the statement, the fund has already made its first investment in Stellart International School of Arts (SISA) in Guangzhou. The art and design-focused project was developed by Gaw Capital.

“Investor demand for education and other value-add and opportunistic opportunities in Asia reinforces our belief that such investments will play an increasingly important role in real estate portfolios moving forward,” Christina Gaw head of capital markets for the firm noted in the statement.

Adding to Real Estate Vehicles

In keeping with Gaw Capital’s growing footprint in the region, the real estate fund will focus on opportunities across sectors and markets in Asia, according to the statement.

In December of last year, the Hong Kong-based investment manager had closed on $2.2 billion in fresh capital for its Gateway Real Estate Fund VI, the latest in the firm’s series of opportunistic property vehicles.

In November of 2019, the firm established a new joint venture with mainland data centre developer and operator Centrin Data to acquire, develop and operate hyperscale facilities in China, bringing it into the rapidly growing market for server structures in China.

Since 2005 Gaw Capital has now raised more than $15 billion in equity and had assets under management of $25.8 billion as of the first quarter of 2020. Alongside its Gateway series, Gaw Capital also manages a Vietnam-specific fund, a Pan Asia Hospitality Fund and a European Hospitality Fund.

The private equity firm has also been an active early-stage investor in Asia. In June 2020, Gaw participated in the series A funding round of Vietnamese prop-tech startup Propzy alongside Japan’s Softbank Ventures Asia.