PGGM adds $100m co-invest to Japan logistics fund

Ties between The Redwood Group and Dutch pension asset manager PGGM have further strengthened with a $100 million commitment to its Japan Logistics Real Estate Fund in the form of co-investment.

PGGM has already committed around $130 million to the fund, so the investor’s overall account has been taken to more than $230 million.

Detailing the arrangement, both parties explained how the additional $100 million was a co-investment alongside the Redwood Japan Logistics Fund to gain access to two Tokyo projects due for completion in 2015 and 2016.

It also comes off the back of PGGM’s $144 million commitment with The Redwood Group’s China Logistics Fund announced last month, which also fits in with PGGM’s “long term investment policy”.

Speaking of the Japanese strategy, Ping Ip, investment manager for Japan with PGGM, said: “This investment fits well into the PGGM Private Real Estate Fund with its long term investment policy.” Boosting Redwood’s credentials, he added that The Redwood Group had “executed some of the highest quality distribution and logistics real estate developments and investments in Japan and elsewhere in Asia”.

Stuart Gibson and Hideaki Matsunami, chief executive officer and managing director of Redwood Japan respectively, said that demand in Japan for “efficient, sustainable and safe logistics facilities” was at its greatest level since they started operations in the Japan logistics real estate market sector in 1999. “This compounded by the limited supply of the last years during and post the crisis has led to record high occupancy in the sector,” they added.

The Redwood Group was started in 2006 by Charles de Portes and Stuart Gibson, and is staffed by teams in Singapore, Japan and China. It describes itself as a Singapore-based logistics fund manager and is also the Asia logistics partner of Equity International, whose chairman is Sam Zell.