Print

Mail

wiki links

LaSalle and Taishin to launch securities fund

"It is a good time to invest in the market."

Todd Canter, managing director of LaSalle Investment Management

LaSalle Investment Manage-ment, an arm of real-estate service firm Jones Lang LaSalle, said yesterday it would work with Taishin Investment Trust (台新投信) to introduce a global real estate securities fund in two weeks.

"We see strong real estate fundamentals across the globe as rental growth and taking-up rates are on the uptrend for the next two to three years," Todd Canter, managing director of LaSalle Investment Management, said in Taipei.

The US subprime mortgage crisis had hurt the residential property market, but the commercial real estate market is still strong, he said.

Many real estate investment trusts (REITs) are now traded with discounted prices rather than premium prices and thus make the valuations attractive, he said.

"It is a good time to invest in the market," he said.

Canter refused to reveal the size of the fund to be launched in Taiwan. LaSalle Investment Management had issued similar funds of US$200 million in Singapore, and US$300 million in South Korea, he said.

The top three REITs the fund has invested in are Westfield Group, which has ownership interests in 43 shopping malls in Australia; Unibail-Rodamco, a French property developer; and Simon Property Group, the largest US mall operator, Canter said.

LaSalle invested US$47 billion in real estate, he said, with US$10.6 billion in real estate securities.
This story has been viewed 853 times.