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The Singapore Central Private Real Estate Fund (SCPREF) will focus on prime commercial assets in the country’s central business district, with assets worth about S$8.2 billion ($6.5 billion). SCPREF’s initial portfolio includes several buildings in Singapore’s CBD: Asia Square Tower 1, One Raffles Link, Marina Bay Link Mall, and Towers 1 and 2 of Marina Bay Financial Centre.

“Going forward, we envision having a series of funds with high-quality investors on our side, generating revenue from fund management,” says Smith. luck.

Among these high-quality investors, at least for SCPREF, are the sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and APG Asset Management, part of the Dutch pension fund. Smith added that “an established sovereign wealth fund in Southeast Asia” had also invested, though he declined to identify which fund.

Private real estate funds are particularly attractive to sovereign wealth funds, Smith explains, because they provide certainty of returns. “Sovereign wealth funds have the capital to deploy, but they need to be protected – and these funds meet those needs.”

In a statement, the Qatar Investment Authority said that its participation in SCPREF “underscores its strategy of partnering with best-in-class operators to access high-quality real assets in key global markets and achieve flexible, long-term returns.”

He hopes that the fund will grow to a value of $15 billion. (SCPREF is an open-ended fund that has no fixed duration, allowing more investors to join.)

Singapore’s real estate market has boomed in recent years, with real estate investment sales growing by 27% in 2025 to reach $26.9 billion, the highest level since 2017.

Hongkong Land is bullish on Singapore’s commercial property market. “The latest in new supply has been absorbed, and the government has no intention of increasing the supply of office land within the CBD,” explains Michelle Ling, chief investment officer at Hong Kong Land.

Hong Kong Land shares, which trade in Singapore, fell 0.6% on February 4, erasing early morning gains. Shares in the developer, which is majority owned by the Global 500 group Jardine MathesonIts value has doubled in the past 12 months.

A new era for a century-old company

Sir Paul Chater and James Johnston Keswick founded the Hong Kong Land Company in 1889. Chater, at the time, was leading one of the earliest land reclamation operations along Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, which eventually became the city’s central business district. Hongkong Land remains one of the largest property owners in the central region. The developer manages about $40 billion in assets overall.

In the century since its founding, Hong Kong Land has expanded into regional markets such as mainland China, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines.

However, the developer has suffered from a weak real estate market in both mainland China and Hong Kong, as well as difficulties in its residential projects in general. “We had apartments in Cebu, Philippines, and in Wuhan and Bangkok, but we never had enough scale in any of those markets to be a meaningful player,” Smith explains.

Hongkong Land reported revenues of more than $751 million The first six months of 2025down 23% year-on-year. The developer had an after-tax profit of $222 million during the same period, compared to a loss of $828 million the previous year. (Hong Kong Land’s losses widened last year due to non-cash impairments.)

Smith takes over as CEO of Hongkong Land in 2024, after spending more than 11 years at Singaporean company Mapletree, most recently as its regional CEO and an executive board member of the company’s industrial fund.

Since taking over as CEO of Hong Kong Land, Smith has set out to focus on commercial property and fund management, while shedding its less profitable residential business. The developer no longer seeks the construction market for sale, as projects are completed before being sold to potential buyers. Last November, it sold one of its residential arms, MCL Land, to Malaysia’s Sunway Group for $579 million.

Other property developers, such as CapitaLand and Mapletree, are also pursuing asset-light models, which they claim will make them more flexible and reduce debt.

Smith wants the developer to be more active with the real estate market. “We had these great assets, but we were more like herbivores,” he jokes. “We were just collecting rent, and we didn’t do much more with them for many years.”

He is looking beyond just Singapore, with his eye on expanding commercial real estate development and money management services to “gateway cities” in Asia, citing Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney as examples.

What makes a “gateway city”? Stock markets, professional services and startups, Smith says. “Where all the finance and tech bros want to be, we want to be.”