GIC deepens exposure in India
Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC has partnered with Toronto-based manager Brookfield’s India Real Estate Investment Trust to invest in India’s office sector as it continues to grow its presence in the country. The pair  purchased two large commercial assets, totaling 6.5 million square feet, from Brookfield Asset Management’s private real estate funds for $1.4 billion. The 50:50 transaction comes shortly after GIC acquired an IT-focused special economic zone from the Indian real estate firm Phoenix Group earlier this month. This is also GIC’s first joint venture with a public REIT in India, according to an announcement. “We expect growth in the India office sector to continue, driven by an established IT industry, increased focus by global corporations on digital adoption, and the availability of skilled talent,” Kishore Gotety, co-head of real estate in Asia ex-China for GIC, said.

Final piece of the puzzle
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority has now replenished the senior bench of its global real estate team. Pritesh Patel, currently the chief investment officer of Americas Real Estate at Manulife, will join the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund this summer as head of Americas. He will replace Gerald Fung, who left two years ago after more than a decade at the organization, PERE previously reported. Fung’s exit was part of a wave of departures – including global head of real estate Tom Arnold, head of European real estate Pascal Duhamel and head of Asia-Pacific real estate Todd Rhodes – where ADIA was left without regional real estate heads for many months. That changed last year, when ADIA appointed Deutsche Bank veteran Drew Goldman as its global head of real estate and promoted Christophe Ben Naceur to Europe real estate head and Aditya Bhargava to APAC real estate head. Patel now completes ADIA’s revamped real estate senior leadership team.

Crow Holdings believes in retail
As offices are receiving the brunt of the criticism directed at the private real estate sector these days, it can be easy to miss the fact that sentiment toward various formats of retail property has improved. One firm warming to shops is Dallas-based Crow Holdings Capital which has been investing in small, neighborhood strip centers using capital from two funds – Crow Holdings Retail Fund I and Crow Holdings Retail Fund II – which attracted a combined $712 million beginning in 2015. The firm has now recapitalized the combined portfolio of “small-format, convenience-oriented, open-air, food and service shopping centers,” in a $1.8 billion transaction with an undisclosed global institutional investor. The firm says the deal proves the strength of certain retail despite the sector’s broader challenges. Indeed, Crow Holdings Capital and its investors have such belief in the asset class, they are planning to invest another $300 million of equity to grow the portfolio. “This was not a case of ‘invest this and let’s flip this in three years.’ This was, ‘Let’s invest in this portfolio. Let’s keep doing this,’” Michael Levy, chief executive, told PERE. Read our exclusive story here.

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