Morgan Stanley raising $10 billion property fund, eyes China
Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is raising $10 billion for a global property fund and plans to put $1.5 billion or more of that into China, shrugging off concern about a property market downturn, a banking source said on Wednesday.
The Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund VII Global, the latest in a series of property investment funds, is expected to begin investing worldwide before the end of this year, said the source, who had direct knowledge of the fund.
It will invest at least 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in China over the next few years, taking a gradual approach while focusing on the largest cities such as Shanghai, where the price for a luxury downtown apartment can exceed $20 million, said the source.
The retail portion of the fund-raising has been completed with a minimum requirement of $1 million for individual investors in Asia.
The institutional portion, which requires at least $10 million for each institutional investor, will be completed soon, the source added.
“It should not be too difficult for Morgan Stanley to raise funds from retail investors in Asia since, as you know, in China alone the number of millionaires has been growing very fast in recent years,” the source said.
“As for the institutional portion, many of them are old friends of Morgan Stanley,” he said, referring to investors in the Wall Street bank’s last six global property funds.
The source declined to be identified because he was not authorized to comment on the fund to the media payday loans. Morgan Stanley declined to comment.