$35bn Realty PE Fund Gaw Capital Partners Plans India Entry; Macquarie Group’s Nitin Gupta To Lead Ops

One of Asia's largest private equity funds in real estate, Gaw Capital Partners, which has portfolio companies in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and China is now betting big on India and plans to make an entry in the domestic market, multiple industry sources with knowledge of the matter told Moneycontrol.

The firm which manages assets worth $35.2 bn as of Q1  2022 was established in 2005 and is backed by Hong Kong investment guru and dealmaker Goodwin Gaw and his siblings Kenneth Gaw and Christina Gaw.

"Gaw Capital Partners sees India as a big growth market for real estate and segments like logistics and date centres are attractive to them from a demand perspective. They would have made a foray earlier, but Covid-19 delayed their plans," one of the persons cited above told Moneycontrol.

Also Read: RERA, digitisation of real estate transactions push India’s score on Global Transparency Index: JLL

In November 2021, Gaw Capital Partners announced the first close of its seventh Asia Pacific real estate fund, Gateway Real Estate Fund VII which mopped up $1.2 bn from investors including sovereign wealth funds, endowments, pension funds, and institutional investors.

A second person told Moneycontrol that Gaw Capital Partners had picked a senior corporate finance executive from the Macquarie Group, Nitin Gupta, as MD and Head of India for the former’s domestic operations.

" Nitin Gupta recently moved on as MD at Macquarie Infrastructure & Real Assets ( MIRA) Investments Limited and joined Gaw Capital Partners. He will lead their India foray and his hiring is the first step in that direction," the second person added.

Both the persons above spoke to Moneycontrol on the condition of anonymity.

When contacted, Gupta declined to comment and in response to an email, Gaw Capital Partners said it could not comment on questions regarding the India market yet.

GAW CAPITAL PARTNERS: THE INDIA SPEARHEAD

According to his Linkedin profile, Gupta,  a chartered accountant has nearly 3 decades of experience in investment banking & investment advisory and was earlier MD & Head, of Macquarie Capital ( India) for more than 11 years. Prior to Macquarie Group, he spent a decade at Big 4 firm PwC ( India) where he had joined as part of the founding team to lead the project and corporate finance transactions.

Gupta had steered the $1bn sales of commercial real estate assets of Hiranandani, Powai to Brookfield Asset Management in 2016 ( back then India’s biggest property deal) and the $1bn Piramal Enterprises – APG Asset Management tie-up amongst other transactions, his profile adds.

Gaw Capital's investments span the entire spectrum of real estate sectors, including residential development, offices, retail malls, serviced apartments, hotels, logistics warehouses and IDC projects. In recent years, the firm has also started to invest in new areas such as prop-tech, medical tech, and education-related platforms.

Other overseas investors which have invested in the Indian real estate sector include the likes of Blackstone, Actis Private Equity, Warburg Pincus, GIC, CPPIB, ADIA, and Ivanhoe Cambridge.

Also Read: Demand for residential real estate up 17% as supply declines in Pune, Hyderabad in April-June: Report

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