Investors

Ivanhoé Cambridge to close Shanghai office

The Canadian investor will manage the 29 assets it owns in China via its teams in Singapore, Mumbai and Sydney.

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Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate investment management business of Canadian institutional investor Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, will close its office in China at the end of the year, PERE has learned.

There are nine employees in the firm’s Shanghai office, and it is understood that some of them will be relocated to other offices while others will leave the firm, depending on their individual situations.

“Ivanhoé Cambridge is not exiting the Chinese market but all our real estate activities in the region will be directed from Singapore, Mumbai and Sydney, our three hubs for Asia-Pacific, going forward,” according to a spokesperson.

Currently the firm is invested in China through ventures focused on industrial warehouses and shopping centers. It owns a total of 29 assets in the country. Its most recent investments in China include LOGOS China Logistics Venture 4 established in 2020. The investor partnered with LOGOS, Dutch pension fund investor Bouwinvest and a Gulf Cooperation Council-based investor to develop high-quality logistics and industrial facilities in the key logistics markets in China with an initial investment capacity of $800 million. Before this, Ivanhoé Cambridge also backed the predecessor vehicles in LOGOS’s China development fund series.

Prior to the closing of its China office, the investor had disbanded its team in Hong Kong in 2021, PERE previously reported. George Agethen, the firm’s executive vice president and co-head of Asia-Pacific, was relocated to Singapore from Hong Kong. It also opened a new office in Sydney at the end of 2022.

The real estate investor is among a group of Canadian institutional investors shying away from China due to geopolitical issues. The firm’s parent company CDPQ is also closing its Shanghai office this year and has stopped making private deals in the country, according to media reports. Meanwhile, British Columbia Investment Management Corporation has also reduced its exposure in China and Hong Kong as well as paused direct investments in the country. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan also dissolved its China public equity investment team based in Hong Kong.