Warburg Pincus, GIC set up China rental apartment platform

Warburg Pincus will be participating via its Shanghai-based property investment platform Nova. As part of the partnership and a broader strategy to access opportunities in the urbanization of the Chinese property market, GIC plans to take a minority stake in Nova.

"As a long-term value investor, we are attracted by the promising outlook of China's fast-growing rental apartment sector, with demand driven by changing demographic trends and cultural shifts towards city-living," Lee Kok Sun, CIO for real estate at GIC, said in a statement. "There is a large and growing population of renters within our target income group, with a limited supply of quality institutionally-owned and professionally-managed projects."

Nova was founded in 2015 by its current chairman and co-CEO Wang Qian with a view to delivering best-in-class investment, renovation and operation services to China's urban renewal and institutional apartment sector. The platform aims to rejuvenate neighborhoods by repositioning properties as apartments, creative offices, and retail spaces. It claims to have acquired some RMB 10 billion of properties, with 39 currently under operation or renovation.

Previous activity by Warburg Pincus in this space includes support for Chinese serviced apartment chain operator Gongyu, with a $200 million commitment in 2015 and a $60 million growth round in 2013. Earlier this year, the GP joined a RMB4 billion Series A for Ziroom, a Beijing-based company that leases apartments from individual owners, renovates the spaces, and then re-leases them.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Real estate
• Expansion
• Warburg Pincus Asia
• GIC Private
• China
• Growth capital