7 September 2022 - Creating opportunities in an already saturated industry, a group of veteran real estate executives has teamed up with a major financial institution to launch a Thailand-focused real estate private equity trust. Seeded by the KE GROUP and helmed by Adrian Lee, the former CEO and COO of Raimon Land Plc, the Trust aims to provide developers with much-needed liquidity through last-mile financing of their existing projects, which would allow developers to monetise their successful projects much earlier and offer them much-needed liquidity for growth.
Panon Leelamanit, Managing Partner: “The post-pandemic period has created a unique environment where a strong cash position from developers can allow them to beat the next real estate cycle where the next wave of growth is expected. "However, there is a mismatch between the financing environment and market situations. We feel this arbitrage is a prime moment for our investors to gain exposure from existing strong performing projects from developers when they are about to shift focus and risks to the new post-pandemic segments and products.”
The Trust with its three Managing Partners - Adrian Lee, Panon Leelamanit, and Thunyatorn Nattatum, together have a wide variety of experiences and operational knowledge within the real estate industry. Together with an Investment Committee comprising real estate veterans such as Kaveepan Eiamsakulrat, Executive Chairman of KE GROUP and Suphin Mechuchep, Chairperson of Jones Lang LaSalle Thailand, ALLY KEX Private Equity Trust is well set up to connect conservative capital with growth opportunities across the real estate industry.
Adrian Lee, Managing Partner: “I am truly excited to be able to partner and work with so many real estate experts in developing a new concept in real estate financing. I sincerely feel that with the experience and guidance of the Investment Committee and the energy my team and I bring, we will be able to generate good returns for all our investors.”
"The Private Equity Trust structure is the first legal structure in Thailand to allow the money pool of individuals to invest in private assets. There are very few players in the Thai real estate private equity environment. Most of them have disguised themselves in the forms of corporate investment arms, holistic private equity funds registered in Singapore and family offices that do not have active investment records."
Thunyatorn Nattatum, Managing Partner: “Things will change. More new players will jump in. Product specialisation in each real estate category will become more explicit. We believe the regulators will start setting the license standardisation for private equity in general and real estate private equity. The industry’s direction will be normalised toward more efficiency - lower returns, lower fees for managers, higher regulated standards, and better pools for selecting products to invest in. However, as of the moment, we are one of the pioneers and have created for ourselves a first mover's advantage."
Looking ahead with a swift execution plan, the Trust expects to deploy all the capital to approximately eight to ten projects within the first half of 2023.
For more information about ALLY KEX Private Equity Trust, please contact info@kexpe.com.