Blackstone Names Justin Wai Head of Greater China Real Estate

Private equity giant Blackstone has promoted its Hong Kong-based managing director Justin Wai to head of real estate for Greater China, giving the world’s largest real estate fund manager new leadership in Asia’s biggest economy after the departure of Tim Wang in September 2020.

Reporting to Chris Heady, Blackstone’s chairman of Asia Pacific and head of real estate for Asia, Wai now leads acquisitions and management for Blackstone’s real estate strategies in Greater China. In his new role, which became effective on 1 January 2022, Wai is responsible for expanding the fund manager’s existing portfolio of logistics, office and multi-family assets in China’s Tier 1 cities.

Wai’s promotion, which was first reported by PERE, follows soon after Blackstone moved to expand its logistics portfolio in China, having agreed to buy out R&F Properties’ remaining 30 percent interest in a Guangzhou logistics park last December for RMB 3.4 billion ($540 million) to acquire full ownership of the 98 hectare (242 acre) project.

Blackstone in July had upgraded that warehouse strategy, which now measures some 5 million square metres (53.8 million square feet) of shed space and ranks among the five-largest logistics portfolios in China, by branding it DragonCor and appointing Shanghai-based executive Peter Hwang as chief executive.

Long-Haul Hire

In his new role, Wai will remain in Hong Kong to help lead Blackstone’s 63-member real estate team across its offices in the city and in Shanghai.

During his 14 years at Blackstone, Wai served most recently as a managing director with the firm’s real estate team, where he played a key role in establishing DragonCor, including the acquisition of R&F’s Guangzhou logistics park.

Wai also helped lead Blackstone’s $480 million investment in Taubman Asia’s mall holdings in 2019 and took part in the firm’s acquisition of Hong Kong-listed developer Tysan Holdings in 2014.

A graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, Wai began his career in 2006 by joining Australian financial services group Macquarie as an analyst on the real estate investment banking team. He served the group for a year before joining Blackstone in 2007.

Ambitious Expansion

The announcement of Wai’s appointment signals Blackstone’s restored confidence in the mainland market after the cancellation in 2020 of a privatisation deal with Beijing-based office developer Soho China worth more than $4 billion.

Blackstone announced last September that its second attempt to buy out Soho China for $3 billion was also cancelled after failing to win approval from mainland authorities.

This year the fund management titan seems to have shaken off its setbacks on the mainland, with Wai’s promotion and Blackstone’s buyout of R&F Properties’ logistics park both being announced less than five months after the backfired Soho deal.

Manhattan-based Blackstone, which reported $279.5 billion in assets under management for its real estate segment in the fourth quarter of 2021, raised about $6.3 billion for its third Asia fund over the same period, according to an earnings call presentation published this week.

In the earnings call, Blackstone said its distributable earnings rose 55 percent year-on-year to $2.27 billion in the three months that ended December 2021.