Asian pension and sovereign wealth funds have become increasingly active in U.S. and European real estate markets in recent years, and distressed deals thrown up by the global financial crisis have served only to whet their ongoing appetite for involvement in these overseas markets as they adjust their portfolio strategies in order to best manage their liabilities in these uncertain economic times.

When South Korea’s national pension fund struck a deal in November 2009 to buy the London headquarters of the banking giant HSBC, it heralded a landmark deal for Asian institutional investors, and the largest property acquisition ever by a Korean investor.

The National Pension Service (NPS) agreed to pay £772.5 million (US$1.3 billion) to buy the 44-floor tower in the British capital’s Canary Wharf office district. That was almost 10 times the record for a property p