LaSalle Hires PGIM’s Matthew Yao to Lead RMB Strategy

LaSalle Investment Management is taking advantage of a newly won license to raise local currency funds in China by launching its first renminbi strategy, and has hired former PGIM Real Estate executive Matthew Jianguo Yao to run the new fund.

In an announcement on Tuesday, LaSalle said that, in a newly created role as head of the fund, Yao will partner with LaSalle’s team across Shanghai and Hong Kong to develop its RMB strategy and leverage his “market expertise and deeply-rooted network” to build capital partnerships with China’s domestic institutional investors.

“China is a strategically important market for LaSalle and one to which we have a long-term commitment, having operated in the country since 2005,” said Claire Tang, LaSalle IM’s head of Greater China and co-chief investment officer for Asia Pacific, who will supervise Yao directly.

“We’re pleased to welcome Matthew to our team as we broaden our fundraising to tap on the deep pool of domestic investable capital in China,” Tang said.

Growing in China

“I’m looking forward to working with the LaSalle team to diversify our investor base and to extend the firm’s track record of investment excellence,” Yao said in the release.

His appointment follows LaSalle’s registration as a private equity fund manager (PFM) with the Asset Management Association of China, enabling the firm to raise capital locally in RMB, and to provide fund management services for RMB funds in China, LaSalle indicated.

At PGIM Real Estate, Yao had been in charge of strategic development and growth of the company’s business in China since joining the firm at the beginning of last November. At the real estate fund management affiliate of Prudential, Yao focused on expanding the firm’s pool of investment opportunities through joint venture partnerships and domestic capital relationships, as well as developing future investment vehicles in the country.

Before joining the real estate division of PGIM, Yao spent around eight years with CBRE Global Investors (now CBRE Investment Management), where he had served as head of China and built a track record of launching, investing and managing real estate funds on the mainland on behalf of local and foreign investors.

Active in APAC

LaSalle, which manages approximately $82 billion of assets across private equity, debt and public real estate strategies as of 30 June, remained one of the most active fund managers in the region in recent months, having announced in September that it raised more than $2.2 billion in equity for its LaSalle Asia Opportunity VI fund, exceeding the firm’s initial target of $1.5 billion.

LAO VI, the sixth in LaSalle’s closed-ended opportunistic fund series focused on Asia Pacific, seeks to take advantage of mispriced assets with opportunities to add value through repositioning and redevelopment in the region’s key markets.

The firm has also been actively taking on new projects around the region with LaSalle and joint venture partner TE Capital Partners in August obtaining approval to build a freehold office project at 148 Cecil Street in Singapore’s central business district.

During that same month the company also notched a residential deal in Hong Kong as it teamed up with rental housing operator Weave Living to purchase an apartment tower in the city’s Mid-Levels area for HK$275 million ($35 million).

Weave and LaSalle bought Wai Yan Court, a 25-unit tower at 68 Robinson Road in the upscale residential district as the first deal under a $140 million equity joint venture.