One of Australia’s biggest diversified property groups has joined the speaker roster for the Mingtiandi Australia Forum, with Dexus fund manager Brad Collier confirmed for a spotlight interview at the 15 September event.
Collier, who leads the A$12.6 billion ($9 billion) Dexus Wholesale Property Fund, joins the agenda for Mingtiandi’s inaugural Australia event with senior names from Blackstone, Brookfield and DWS now also set to take the stage at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney in two weeks time. Tickets to the forum are still available at the link below.
The addition of the senior Dexus executive focuses the forum’s interviews on three of Australia’s most closely watched landlords, with Investa chief executive Peter Menegazzo and Charter Hall direct property chief Steve Bennett also set for spotlight sessions,
With the three interviews now in place, more than two dozen speakers are set to take the stage at the Mingtiandi Australia Forum, with the programme now expected to draw more than 200 industry leaders to Sydney for conversations on commercial, industrial, living and hospitality strategies as well as opportunities for cross-border investment.
Hotels and Sheds
In addition to Collier joining the interview series, Blackstone managing director Rohit S Jain and Matthew Tripolone, managing director for Australasia and the Pacific at IHG Hotels & Resorts, having will be adding their perspectives to the forum’s session on hospitality investment, alongside Maria Ariizumi, vice president of development for Southeast Asia and Australasia at Hilton.
With the growth of e-commerce continuing to drive demand for logistics space, Claire Reading, head of capital transactions at Stockland, Ross Lees, chief executive and managing director of Growthpoint Properties, and Chris Favretto, investment director at Cabot Properties, have joined the industrial investment panel.
The trio of senior executives will be appearing alongside Troy Bryant, founder and co-chief executive of Macquarie Asset Management-backed developer and fund manager LogiSPACE for a look at the forces driving demand for distribution space across Australia.
BTR Expands, Commercial in Focus
Australia’s most sought after asset class in recent years has been build-to-rent, and with higher interest rates now disrupting what has been one of the region’s hottest build-to-sell markets, experts from DWS and Warburg Pincus-backed Kio Investment Management have joined the forum’s BTR panel.
Representing DWS, the asset management affiliate of Deutsche Bank, will be the company’s head of real estate for Asia Pacific, Matthias Naumann; while vice president Jessie Zhuang, will speak on behalf of Kio.
Naumann and Zhuang will be appearing alongside previously announced speakers Sascha Harms, head of Australia at Arch Capital, and Dr Sabine Schaffer, co-founder and managing partner of Pro-Invest Group. The panel will be moderated by Paul Adamiak, executive vice president for business development at Citco.
In the past eighteen months Australia has also benefited from the return of core investing, with institutional investors seeing value in the country’s prime office and retail properties.
To explore opportunities in offices and shopping centres, Rowan Russell, vice president for investments at Brookfield Asset Management, has joined the forum’s commercial markets panel, where he will appear alongside previously confirmed speakers Julian Menegazzo, director and head of Australia investments at Link Real Estate Partners, and Ben Schubert, national head of capital transactions and advisory at Savills Australia.
The panel will be moderated by Alpha Alternatives partner Paul Petersen.
Rava, AGP Join Cross-Border Discussion
With Asian investors playing a leading role in Australian real estate markets, Kate Herfort, partner and head of group capital at data centre investor AGP Sustainable Real Assets, and Rava Partners managing director Harsh Narang have joined a panel on cross-border investment at the forum which will provide insights on the which sectors are now drawing the most interest from investors from overseas.
Herfort and Narang join previously announced speakers Trent Winduss, head of Australia investments and head of Asia structured debt investments at Phoenix Property Investors, and Stuart McCann, managing director and head of capital advisors for the Pacific and Southeast Asia at CBRE for the discussion.
For audience members unable to attend the event in person, the forum will be livestreamed globally on the MTD TV video platform.