The real estate investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has backed international real estate firm Hines, with a $400m (€332m) capital, to launch a new Asia-Pacific core-plus fund.

Cadillac Fairview’s capital commitment to Hines Asia Property Partners (HAPP), gives the fund an initial investment capacity of $900m to invest across all sectors in the region.

HAPP will be a multi-sector, open-ended, diversified vehicle targeting top-tier markets in Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore and China, including Hong Kong.

Hines said HAPP intends to invest in logistics, office, living, retail and “select niche sectors to build a diversified portfolio targeting core plus returns and balancing yield and growth”.

Duncan Osborne, executive VP of investments at Cadillac Fairview, said: “We are delighted to invest in Hines Asia Property Partners as a lead founding investor, and we believe that Asia will accelerate growth and diversification benefits to our portfolio with potential long-term outperformance.

“Our relationship with Hines dates back two decades and they have a proven track record as a trusted manager and operator with demonstrated history of successfully executing investments through their local market teams.”

David Steinbach, Hines global CIO, said: “We are very pleased to partner with such a prominent like-minded institutional investor like Cadillac Fairview to launch our flagship fund in Asia. We look forward to creating value for our current and future investors, project partners, and communities through the fund’s investments.

“Our long-established teams in the region have already started to identify and secure opportunities that are emerging post-COVID across Asia Pacific.”

Hines already has a presence in the region. The company first entered China over 25 years ago. Since 1996, Hines has expanded throughout 13 cities across Australia, China (including Hong Kong), India, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, with $5.3bn.

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