Gaw Capital Hires Greystar’s Jialin Li as Managing Director of Investments

Hong Kong fund manager Gaw Capital Partners has appointed Jialin Li as the company’s Shanghai-based managing director of investments.

The role will see Li, most recently of apartment specialist Greystar, exploring investment opportunities in the rental housing sector and leading Gaw’s industrial acquisitions and divestments in China, the privately held firm said in a release.

A 17-year real estate veteran, Li will help drive strategic initiatives and enhance Gaw’s ability to capitalise on emerging opportunities in Asia’s biggest economy, said Humbert Pang, the firm’s managing principal and head of China.

“We are thrilled to welcome Jialin to Gaw Capital,” Pang said. “Jialin’s deep industry knowledge in China’s real estate landscape make her the ideal candidate to lead our logistics platform and explore RMB investment opportunities in the rental housing sector.”

Fundraising Track Record

At Greystar, Li led the acquisition of rental housing properties and spearheaded the raising of dollar-denoted separate accounts and RMB capital for single-asset projects.

Before joining the US giant, she helmed capital-raising activities at Shanghai fund manager SDP Capital and Chinese group Fosun’s global real estate business, following four years as director of acquisition and development for Manhattan-based Tishman Speyer in Shanghai.

The new post represents a homecoming of sorts for Li, who began her career in 2007 as an investment manager for Gaw in Shanghai and stayed with the firm for more than five years.

Fluent in English and her native Mandarin, Li holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Shanghai’s Tongji University and a master’s degree in investment banking and capital markets from FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.

Leadership Team Expands

Li’s hiring comes after Gaw beefed up its leadership bench in April with the appointments of Hyun-Chan Cho as managing director and head of Korea and Elizabeth Di Cioccio as managing director and head of EMEA capital markets.

Cho joined Gaw from Seoul-based venture capital and infrastructure investment firm IMM Investment, where he headed the fund manager’s infrastructure investment division since 2019. Cho previously worked for nearly 20 years as a director at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation division.

Di Cioccio joined Gaw from KKR, where she headed the US private equity titan’s Middle East business with a focus on raising capital from sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf Cooperation Council nations and other government and institutional clients.

Before KKR, Di Cioccio served as partner and head of international distribution for private equity placement agent firm Mercury Capital Advisors, in addition to having worked at Merrill Lynch’s private equity fundraising group.

Gaw has raised equity of $22.7 billion since 2005 and had assets of $35.4 billion under management as of the first quarter of 2024.