GCP Reaches Closing of 13th China Income Fund With Assets of $380M

GLP Capital Partners on Friday announced the closing of its latest mainland China income fund with RMB 2.8 billion ($380 million) in assets under management.

China Income Fund XIII is a partnership with a leading global institutional investor, the asset management arm of Asian warehouse specialist GLP said in a release. The vehicle is seeded with “several” logistics and business park assets from GLP’s balance sheet, GCP said.

The milestone comes after reports that GLP is mulling a Hong Kong listing of its China unit as early as next year, following the recent proposed sale of its ex-China fund business to US-based Ares Management. GLP China vice chairman Teresa Zhuge said CIF XIII’s closing signifies continued demand for core income-generating properties oriented to new economy sectors.

“China remains one of GLP’s highest conviction markets and we remain positive on its long-term growth prospects, driven by a large domestic consumption base and supportive government policies,” Zhuge said. “We are excited about the significant growth opportunities we see and will focus on building and scaling our platforms across our core logistics, digital infrastructure and renewable energy sectors.”

Balance Sheet Harvest

CIF XIII’s seed assets are located in logistics and R&D clusters across the Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta and midwestern China, according to GCP. Customers are engaged in industries including third-party logistics, e-commerce, clean energy, pharmaceuticals, technology and high-end manufacturing.

Parent GLP managed $79 billion in China assets as of the end of September. In August of last year, the developer was reported to be making available for sale $7 billion worth of China logistics assets.

In February, GCP set up a fund targeting industrial parks in China with an initial investment capacity of more than $350 million, aiming to focus on properties catering to advanced research manufacturing.

The industrial parks vehicle was announced after GCP in January said it had brought its China Income Fund XII to a final closing with RMB 10 billion in assets under management. The firm completed the fundraising for China Income Fund XI, with an investment scale of RMB 3 billion, late last year.

Separation Looms

The $3.7 billion Ares buy, expected to close in the first half of 2025, will bring about the separation of GCP International, the ex-China carve-out, from GCP’s remaining business, which will continue to operate independently from Singapore with a focus on Greater China.

GLP is retaining its ownership of GCP. The go-forward GLP and GCP will remain under the leadership of CEO Ming Z Mei, who joined the board of regional heavyweight Hongkong Land in October and is personally investing in Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City mega-project.

In unaudited financials released in October, GLP disclosed a $451 million loss for the first six months of 2024, reversing a year-earlier profit of $214 million, with the group reporting $1.9 billion in cash on hand.

That same month, Bloomberg reported that the sale of a stake in GLP’s China operations to state-owned Guangdong Holdings had stalled due to disagreements over deal terms.