Singapore wealth fund is “underinvested” in global RE: exec

GIC, partial owners in the Time Warner Center, looking to move billions into gateway cities

Goh Kok Huat Time Warner Center
From left: Goh Kok Huat and the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle

Singaporean investors have already poured substantial cash into the New York real estate market, and more might be on the way.

Goh Kok Huat, president of real estate at GIC Pte, the city-state’s sovereign wealth fund, whose total holdings Morgan Stanley estimates at $343 billion, said his firm was “underinvested” in the global property market and is seeking to make major purchases.

The fund, which owns a piece of the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle, is seeking investments in “gateway cities,” he said. The fund currently has 7 percent of assets in real estate, while it can allocate as much as 9 to 13 percent, several billion dollars more, Bloomberg reported.

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“We would like to put up more money across the globe, but it really depends on whether we see those transactions that are interesting,” Goh said. “We don’t have the compulsion to push money out through the door.”

London-based GIC, the world’s sixth largest sovereign wealth fund, also owns stakes in the Colgate-Palmolive building at 300 Park Avenue, and Cityspire, at 156 West 56th Street, both in Midtown. It partners with Tishman Speyer on both buildings. [Bloomberg]Ariel Stulberg