Singapore-headquartered GLP Capital Partners is not new to winning PERE awards in Asia, however, the firm has stolen the show this time by taking home five of them in 2023. The industrial heavyweight achieved several milestones in 2023, including launching new strategies, growing its network of domestic investors for onshore vehicles and expanding its in-house fundraising capability. It is therefore not surprising to see GCP winning Firm of the Year, Industry Figure of the Year, Logistics Investor of the Year, Data Centers Investor of the Year, and ESG Investor of the Year in Asia.
In terms of strategies, GCP ventured outside of logistics investment into data centers and renewable energy for third-party capital in 2023 and grew its data center business significantly by introducing its global data center platform ADA Infrastructure in September 2023. The platform broke ground on its first data center in Japan and secured IT capacity across seven in-flight campuses in Japan, the UK and Brazil. While the firm started its data center development as early as 2018 in China with its balance sheet capital, GCP will start fundraising for new data center strategies across the region with the launch of the new platform.
In addition to data centers, GCP’s extension into renewable energy contributed to its winning the ESG Firm of the Year. The firm launched its inaugural renewable energy fund – GCP China New Energy Fund I – with commitments from domestic institutions including the National Green Development Fund and feeder funds affiliated with CHN Energy Investment Group, one of China’s largest electricity providers.
Closed with 4 billion yuan ($554 million; €506 million) in equity, the strategy of the fund was complementary to GCP’s growing data center business as well as aligning with the Chinese government’s plan to increase the non-fossil fuel share of total energy consumption to 25 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2060.
Meanwhile, GCP did not forget about its logistics business. Notably, the firm strengthened its connection to domestic capital for logistics strategies in both China and Japan. In Japan, its flagship unlisted open-ended core strategy Japan Income Fund grew to 477 billion yen ($3.2 billion; €3 billion) in total capital commitments.
In China, the firm secured a commitment from a new domestic insurer for its onshore income fund series China Income Fund X with assets under management of 4.3 billion yuan. As one of the first non-state sponsors, GLP C-REIT also raised 1.85 billion yuan in a follow-on offering in 2023.
To fuel its expansion in both strategies and geographies, GCP acquired its long-term partner and capital advisory firm M3 Capital Partners to grow its fundraising capability. M3 also took home the Capital Advisory Firm of the Year, and has now won the award five times since 2018. As a specialist in real assets, M3 raised $1 billion of third-party equity from institutional investors across four discretionary private equity vehicles across Asia, including Japan, China and Hong Kong in the 12 months up to November 2023.
A region rising
GCP’s victory came in a year when Asian firms dominated the regional awards – which is not a given when you consider that in the previous year it was American firms that claimed awards such as Firm of the Year, Deal of the Year, Data Centers Investor of the Year, Hotels & Leisure Investor of the Year and Residential Investor of the Year. Both the winners and the runners-up in the Firm of the Year and Capital Raise of the Year awards this time were Asian firms.
Apart from GCP, Gaw Capital Partners and ESR Group were the first and second runners-up for the Firm of the Year award. China’s DNE Life Science Park Fund won the Capital Raise of the Year with Gaw Capital’s Gateway Real Estate Fund VII and PAG Real Estate Partners Fund III as the first and second runners-up, respectively.
Meanwhile, US-based firms had a relatively quiet year in PERE’s 2023 awards. Last year’s big winner, KKR, won a single award in 2023 – the Hotels & Leisure Investor of the Year – with its first hotel investment in Japan. The firm partnered with Gaw Capital Partners to acquire Hyatt Regency Tokyo from Odakyu Electric Railway Company for more than $400 million.
Real estate powerhouse Blackstone also won Residential Investor of the Year with its entry into the student accommodation sector in Asia-Pacific. It bought Brisbane-based student housing platform Student One for $500 million.
New economy sectors such as logistics and data centers overtook the PERE Awards in 2023, becoming the focus of the region’s biggest real estate players and funds, while the traditional real estate sectors such as retail and office still offered attractive opportunities. Three of the four deals in the Deal of the Year shortlist were in retail and office.
PAG and Mapletree’s purchase of Hong Kong’s Goldin Financial Global Center won that award with 35 percent of the votes. The pair bought the asset from Chinese developer Goldin Financial Holdings for HK$5.6 billion ($713 million; €655 million). This was less than half of the asking price of HK$14.3 billion in September
2020.
Fortress Investment Group’s acquisition of retail stores Sogo & Seibu was the first runner-up and SC Capital Partners, ADIA and Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s acquisition of a hotel portfolio in Japan won the second runner-up in the category.
First time winner: Teresa Zhuge
GLP Capital Partners’ China head has been awarded Industry Figure of the Year for Asia
Having joined GLP Capital Partners 15 years ago, the winner of Industry Figure of the Year, Teresa Zhuge, rose to become the most senior woman in the firm and the first woman to lead its $59 billion China business.
Zhuge was instrumental in growing the firm’s investment and fund management business in the country despite a challenging fundraising year for China in 2023. Under her leadership, GCP launched its debut renewable energy vehicle, GCP China Green Energy Fund, and secured a pan-Asian strategic private investment mandate with a leading Asian sovereign investor for its private equity business Hidden Hill Capital, as well as growing its network of domestic investors significantly in 2023.
In addition, she led the listing of GLP C-REIT in 2021 and raised 1.85 billion yuan in a follow-on offering in 2023. Notably, nearly half of the $4.5 billion GCP raised across development, value-add, income and other private equity strategies came from RMB vehicles in 2023.
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