Compared with other nations, South Korea has weathered the pandemic well and, as a result, has seen increased interest in its property markets from foreign investors. In January, Institutional Real Estate Asia Pacific senior editor Dr Jennifer Molloy spoke with three experts on South Korea.
South Korean real estate asset sales prices have increased due to high liquidity and demand, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, national commercial real estate trading volume was KRW 21.5 trillion (US$18.0 billion), an increase of approximately 75 percent (CAGR 12 percent) over the KRW 12.4 trillion (US$10.3 billion) seen in 2016.
COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the real estate market, with capital shifting increasingly towards the residential and industrial sectors and away from office and retail. To remain flexible in this environment, Partners Group combines its thematic investment approach — targeting subsectors that benefit from transformative trends — with situational investing in opportunities that have a strong need for a solutions provider.
Implementing an effective ESG programme to protect your assets and find strategies for outperformance is not a straightforward task. First, there are a multitude of standard setters and regulators. In fact, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) began mapping standards globally and found 1,970 different reporting provisions, management and reporting resources across 70 countries, including mandatory, compliance and voluntary programmes.
I’d like to draw your attention to IREI’s mission and recap these past two years of working to align the interests of various participants on our platform to achieve our mission and meet the needs of our institutional investor readers.
This past year was a banner one for global investment volume, which reached a record high of US$1.3 trillion in 2021, a 55 percent increase over 2020 and up 21 percent since 2019, according to CBRE’s latest Global Investment brief.
Mastern Asset Management has acquired an office complex near Seoul known as Alpharium Tower for KRW 1.02 trillion (US$853 million) from ARA-Alpharium REIT, which is managed by ARA Korea. According to JLL, the deal is one of the largest office transactions in South Korea since the onset of the pandemic.
Allianz Real Estate, on behalf of South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) and Allianz group companies (Allianz), via its AREAP Core I fund, has agreed to acquire a 50 percent stake in Sydney’s Commonwealth Bank Place at Darling Quarter for a gross valuation of approximately US$445 million.
GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, has agreed to buy the West Village retail precinct in Brisbane, Australia, with co-investor Centuria Capital Group in an off-market deal for A$202 million (US$142 million), according to the Australian Financial Review, which identified the investor.
APG and Ivanhoé Cambridge have invested in Taronga Ventures’ built environment technology fund – RealTech Ventures I (RTVI) — joining other leading global investors. This marks APG’s first proptech investment in Asia Pacific.