Brookfield Buys Swire Hong Kong Site for Cold Storage JV With Uni-China

Canadian giant Brookfield has set up a cold storage joint venture with the investment arm of Hong Kong-based fresh food retailer Uni-China Group to acquire a New Territories industrial site from Swire Properties.

Brookfield teamed with Uni-China’s Maori Capital to pick up the 246,000 square foot (22,854 square metre) site within Tsing Yi island’s logistics cluster, the companies said Thursday in a release. The partners plan to develop a purpose-built cold storage project with energy-efficient refrigeration and advanced storage and logistics management, they said.

No financial terms were stated, but Brookfield said the tie-up could potentially create a vertically integrated cold chain platform across key urban markets by leveraging Uni-China’s operating footprint, which includes the Fresh, Hong Kong Flavour and Taste & Fresh supermarket brands.

“Cold storage is a high-conviction theme for Brookfield, driven by structural shifts in consumption, evolving food logistics requirements and the under-supply of modern temperature-controlled facilities in gateway cities like Hong Kong,” said Andrew Burych, Brookfield’s head of East Asia real estate. “The conversion of the Tsing Yi property to a high-spec cold storage facility is in line with Brookfield’s strategy of revitalising underutilised industrial assets across Asia.”

Consumer Shift Drives Demand

Brookfield, which manages more than $1 trillion in assets globally, previously invested as a limited partner in a China-focused infrastructure fund led by the mainland branch of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. The 2021-vintage vehicle pursues opportunities in ambient and cold chain warehousing, as well as other “new economy” sectors including tech parks and digital infrastructure.

The Tsing Yi asset will serve as the seed property for the newly launched Brookfield-Maori JV, which plans to explore further investment opportunities in high-quality cold storage assets and related businesses across Asia.

“We see rising demand for quality cold storage in Asia’s growing fresh food retail sector, driven by consumers’ shift towards high-quality products,” said Uni-China chairman Jackie Ling. “Our strategic expansion in the cold storage business is set to seize these opportunities.”

Maori Capital, which describes itself as a single family office focused on private equity and real estate investments in retail, tech, cold chain and mini-storage, framed the new partnership as a “key step” in evolving modern cold chain infrastructure.

“We look forward to working closely with Brookfield to expanding the JV platform, and leveraging both of our expertise to investing in high-quality assets and businesses related to cold solutions across the region,” said Maori managing partner Michael Ling.

Record Shed Vacancy

Upon completion, the cold chain project will add to Brookfield’s $26 billion global industrial portfolio spanning more than 2 billion square feet, including $3.5 billion in Asia Pacific logistics assets under management.

The investment giant is making its bet on chilly sheds just as Tsing Yi and the neighbouring Kwai Chung area are poised to add 6.5 million square feet of new industrial supply by 2027-28, according to CBRE estimates.

In February, Singapore’s Mapletree Investments won a Tsing Yi warehouse site near the Kwai Chung Container Terminals at a price 57 percent below what a nearby site sold for in 2022, amid declining port activity.

Warehouse vacancy in Hong Kong hit a record-high 11.8 percent in the third quarter of 2025 as tenants continued to apply cost-saving strategies, CBRE said in a report. The mounting vacancy pressure prompted landlords to cut rents to stay competitive, with overall warehouse rents falling 3.7 percent on a quarterly basis and 6.5 percent in the year to date, the consultancy said.