Hong Kong’s Gaw Capital Partners sold a $280M worth of portfolio of three mainland logistics assets to Chinese insurance giant Ping An. The deal was closed by a team of three MPhil in REF graduates from the 2006/07 class.
In early 2022, Laurent Lin, representing Gaw Capital as the seller, launched an exit for a portfolio of logistics assets located in China. Stephen, representing Cushman & Wakefield as the broker, ran an open-market tendering process for the portfolio. Amy, representing Ping An as the buyer, participated in the tendering and won the bid. Despite the challenging market condition of China’s overall economy and logistics market in 2022 and 2023, the three worked together to complete the transaction. The binding documents were exchanged in mid-2023, and the transaction was closed in early 2024. It was a remarkable deal completed for the China logistics market and completed by the three classmates representing each of their firms. Friendship fostered nearly 20 years ago at REF becomes a special bond and trust in today’s deal making!
Amy Li, Laurent Lin, and Stephen Qiu are from the same class of Real Estate Finance (“REF”) at the Department of Land Economy, the University of Cambridge. The three graduated in 2007 and started their career in real estate in London, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, respectively. Amy serves as the Head of Real Estate for Ping An Overseas Holdings, an investment arm of Ping An Insurance. Prior to Ping An, Amy worked for investment firms like Warburg Pincus, Gingko Tree, and Credit Suisse. Laurent holds the position of Deputy Managing Director, China for Goodman, Australia’s largest real estate developer. Before assuming the senior management role at Goodman in late 2023, Laurent worked for Gaw Capital, a leading Hong Kong-based PERE firm, for nearly a decade, last serving as Deputy Managing Director of Investment. Stephen has been working for Cushman & Wakefield, a global property services provider, since graduation. He now holds the position of Managing Director of the firm’s Capital Markets team.
Laurent (left), Amy (centre) and Stephen (right) had a dinner together to celebrate the deal. They told us that “[w]e recalled the days when we studied at REF and remain grateful for the knowledge and experience which REF brought to us.”
A picture taken during the Liverpool field trip on 10 February 2007. Amy (centre, the first row), Laurent (first from right, the second row) and Stephen (first from right, the first row) were in the picture. The then-Grosvenor Professor in REF, Professor John Glascock, is the second from right in the last row.
Congratulations to the fantastic ‘Team of REF 2006/07”! Well done!