CBRE Capital Advisors Hires Gretchen Yuan as Executive Director in Hong Kong

CBRE has ramped up its efforts to serve Asian investors searching for overseas opportunities by adding a veteran cross-border investment advisor to its team in Hong Kong, according to an announcement by the company this past week.

Former Hodes & Weill Principal Gretchen Yuan joins CBRE as an executive director with the company’s Capital Advisors team for Asia, where she will provide capital raising and strategic advisory services for institutional investors across the region, according to the company.

CBRE Capital Advisors division provides investment banking services to property investors including merger and acquisition advisory, capital raising, pre-initial public offering advisory, recapitalization, and restructuring services.

In her new role Yuan, who also has experience with mainland developer Country Garden, Hong Kong’s Swire Properties and the former MGPA (since acquired by BlackRock), will be working closely with CBRE’s capital markets teams on major transactions.

“We look forward to Gretchen partnering with our Capital Advisors teams in the US and EMEA to deliver the tailored and innovative solutions that clients expect from us as the global leader in real estate capital markets services,” Richard Dakin, global head of Capital Advisors for CBRE said in a statement.

CBRE’s head of capital markets for Hong Kong, Tom Moffatt, said that Yuan is joining at a time when finding suitable real estate investment opportunities outside of the region is an increasing focus for the company’s clients in Asia Pacific, adding that the new CBRE executive’s advisory expertise will enhance the firm’s capital markets offering and cross-regional connectivity.

From World Bank Scholar to CBRE

Yuan is joining CBRE after nearly four years with New York-headquartered Hodes Weill, which like CBRE’s Capital Advisors unit, provides real estate investment advisory, covering institutional capital and investment, with the mainland native focusing on working with clients in the Greater China market until leaving the firm in July.

Prior to joining Hodes Weil in 2015, Yuan had spent ten months in Guangzhou advising the controlling shareholders of China’s largest developer, Country Garden, on overseas investment opportunities.

A Tsinghua University graduate who later went on to earn a Master’s in Public Administration at Harvard as a World Bank Scholar, Yuan founded and led her own US-focused real estate cross border investment fund management firm 2012 to 2014. Before pursuing her US degree Yuan also spent just over one year at MGPA and nearly two years as a management trainee with Swire Properties.