Girard steps down as M&G’s Asia head

The real estate fund manager has appointed a new chief executive officer to replace Scott Girard who is relocating to Australia 

Scott Girard, the long-serving Asia chief executive officer of the real estate fund manager M&G Real Estate, has stepped down from his role.

In a statement released this morning, the firm has announced that Chiang Ling Ng will be taking on Girard’s role. Ng is currently the acquisitions director in M&G’s Singapore office. Her new role as chief executive and chief investment officer for the region will begin on July 1.

Girard will remain with the firm until September to ensure a smooth transition of management responsibilities, following which he will relocate to Australia. Girard did not respond to calls and emails from PERE on the reasons behind the move, but the firm said in the announcement that it was for family reasons.

“We are sad to see Scott leave us but understand his wish to re-join his family in Australia and would like to note our gratitude for his excellent stewardship of our Asian business over the past six years,” said Alex Jeffrey, chief executive officer for M&G Real Estate.

Ng has been with M&G since the last two years, having assisted with the growth of Asia’s core real estate strategy from $2.1 billion in assets under management to $2.9 billion during that period. Prior to joining the firm, she spent 15 years at the private equity real estate division of Goldman Sachs, of which six years were spent in Singapore.

On Ng’s promotion, Jeffrey said: “With a substantial queue of capital for investment and a rapidly growing portfolio of assets, we expect to make further announcements in due course. Chiang Ling Ng was an outstanding candidate for this role and her appointment reflects the depth of talent we have in our business.”

The firm further added in the statement that “there would be no changes to the management of M&G’s Asia core strategy, which continues under the leadership of Erle Spratt.”

M&G Real Estate operates one of the largest open-ended core real estate funds in the region that has so far raised more than $1.2 billion in capital and been invested in 29 assets across Australia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Singapore.

In September last year, the Dutch pension group Blue Sky reportedly made an investment of $100 million in the M&G Asia Property Fund