Details

Date

: Thursday 30 April 2015

Time

: 12:00 -13:30

Venue

: InfraRed Office, 23/F., No.8 Wyndham Street, Central, Hong Kong

David Watt
Senior Advisor
InfraRed Capital Partners

David Watt is currently Senior Advisor to InfraRed Capital Partners and an independent non-executive director of the manager of The Link REIT in Hong Kong. David is a senior real estate consultant with over 40 years’ experience in the Asia and European markets. After an early stint in business administration in a British State owned industry, he joined DTZ, became a Chartered Surveyor and worked in their London and Middle East offices. He then led their Continental European team for a number of years before moving to Asia in 2002 to establish their capabilities across the Asia Pacific region, opening new offices in Japan, S. Korea and India and running their Greater China and then the rest of their of Asia Pacific businesses.    

Throughout, David has acted on the development and investment of commercial projects for clients across more than twenty countries. These have included the development, repositioning and refurbishment of over fifty shopping and leisure malls. In Asia the most prominent have been leading the development teams for China Central Place, Beijing and i-Square, Hong Kong. He has also advised on tenant-mix and design elements of the shopping centre and commercial leisure in the Singapore Sports Hub, for Yanlord on their Chengdu mall and for Swire Properties on the repositioning of Citigate Outlets, Hong Kong.

Prior to working in East Asia, projects that David worked on included Cairo Plaza, Dubai Gallerias, Surrey Quays, Butlers Wharf and The Trocadero in London and a number of regional centres in Britain, France and The Netherlands. For Infrared, he has worked on the acquisition of malls in China and Paris. For the Link REIT he sits on the Finance and Investment Committee which makes recommendations on all acquisitions disposals and refurbishments within its US$13 billion retail portfolio. David has worked on fund strategy and set-ups in Korea and S.E. Asia. He advised Prologis on their China entry strategy and on their development of the 3 million sqft logistics centre in Shenzhen’s Yantian Port. Major office investment transactions have included the acquisition of Northgate House, Seoul for Prupim (M&G) and Asia Plaza, Taipei for Shin Kong Life Insurance.

David holds a Masters Degree from Oxford University and has completed the International Executive Programme at INSEAD, France and has been an occasional lecturer for Tsinghua University’s EMBA programme.  He has worked and lived in London, Dubai, Bahrain and Hong Kong.