Alpha Investment Partners, a unit of Singapore’s Keppel Capital, has entered a venture with the Indonesian subsidiary of Manulife Financial Corporation and a local Indonesian company to establish a US$200m (€178m) logistics platform.

Alpha, PT Asuransi Jiwa Manulife Indonesia and PT Mega Manunggal Property (MMP) have made an initial capital commitment of some US$93m to their newly created Keppel-MMP Indonesia Logistics Fund.

The Keppel-MMP fund would be seeded with an initial portfolio of stakes in four stabilised logistics assets in Greater Jakarta, which were to be acquired from MMP.

Collectively, the venture will have an initial target size of US$200m, and will draw on the expertise of its three partners to jointly acquire and manage quality logistics properties in Indonesia.

Alpha will be the investment manager of the venture, while MMP will be strategic advisor to Alpha and property manager of the vehicle’s logistics properties.

Ryan Charland, president director and CEO of Manulife Indonesia, and Kenny Lam, senior managing director, head of Asia real estate investments for Manulife, said this was their first real estate investment in Indonesia.

They spoke of Indonesia’s positive long-term macro and demographics prospects and said the investment “fitted well with our long-term investment strategy” for the Asia-Pacific market.

Alvin Mah, CEO of Alpha, said Indonesia’s growing middle-class population was driving rapid growth in consumption and e-commerce, and that Jakarta had a limited supply of modern logistics.

He said the vehicle would position the partners to capture opportunities in the high-growth potential of the logistics property sector in what is Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

“By setting up this platform, MMP has taken its first step in implementing an asset-light strategy to recycle capital from its stabilised portfolio,” said Bonny Budi Setiawan, CEO of MMP.

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