APREA Australia ConferenceProfiting from Dislocation in Real Assets across APAC

Wissam is a corporate M&A partner with a specialist focus on the real estate industry, acting for both domestic and international clients. In particular, the establishment of incorporated and unincorporated joint ventures, consortia, capital partnerships and wholesale funds with a real asset focused investment mandate as well as on the acquisition, disposal and restructuring of real assets.

Mr Lim has extensive experience in the investment management and real estate sectors. From 1986 to 1995, he was with Jones Lang Wootton in Sydney, where his last held position was Research Director. He joined Suncorp Investments, Brisbane, Australia and worked as the Portfolio Manager of Property Funds from 1995 to 1997. From 1997 to 2008, he was with the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, where his last held position was Regional Manager.

From 2008 to 2011, Mr Lim was a Managing Director of GIC Real Estate. His responsibilities included being the Regional Head of Property Investment for Australia, Japan and Southeast Asia and the Global Head of the Corporate Investments Group that invests in public REITs and property companies.

Mr. Lim is currently the Chairman of Cromwell European REIT, the only Pan- European REIT listed on Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited ("SGX- ST”). He also sits on the board of General Property Trust Group and Sunway Berhad. Mr Lim sat on the board of Global Logistic Properties Limited, before it was delisted in2018.

Ms. Safdar is an Associate Director in AEW Research (Asia Pacific) where she supports both the Direct and Indirect Investment teams in the region. She is a member of the firm’s Global Securities Allocation Committee. She has over ten years of real estate experience which she relies on to provide top-down research and strategy support for all new and existing property investments. Ms. Safdar joined AEW in 2018 from Cambridge Associates, where she conducted fund manager research and due diligence projects across Asia Pacific’s real estate and infrastructure managers. Prior to that, she also held a research position at DTZ in Singapore. Ms. Safdar is a graduate of the National University of Singapore (B.Sc).

Hamish MacDonald, Managing Director, is Head and Chief Investment Officer of Asia Pacific Real Estate, leading BlackRock's real estate activities across the region. Hamish is responsible for the strategy and management of the business operations as well as the real estate funds and assets managed in the region. He is a member of the Global Value Add Real Estate Investment Committee.

Hamish's service with the firm dates back to 2007, including his years with MGPA, which was acquired by BlackRock in 2013. He originally joined the London office where he was Head of Acquisitions - UK and in 2012 he established the office in Sydney. Hamish began his career in real estate in 1999 and has been focusing on the sourcing and management of value add investment opportunities since 2007. Hamish began his career in Sydney where he was a Development Manager at the Mirvac Group and a Commercial Advisor at Colliers International.

Hamish has a BComm. with majors in Economics and Finance from the University of Sydney and is a Committee Member of the Property Council of Australia.

Scott Mugglestone is a Senior Vice President in Brookfield’s Real Estate Group. In this role, he is responsible for sourcing and executing corporate and asset-level real estate investments in Australia, with a particular focus on alternative real estate sectors such as student accommodation.

Prior to joining Brookfield in 2019, Mr. Mugglestone was a Director in the investment banking division of UBS Australia.

Mr. Mugglestone has a Bachelor of Commerce and Liberal Studies from the University of Sydney and is a CFA Charterholder.

Grace Szeto is the Head of Real Assets, Australia based in Sydney. She is a member of the global Real Assets Research teams, focusing on real estate, infrastructure and natural resources.

Grace has over 12 years of investment industry experience. Prior to joining WTW in 2021, Grace was the Investment and Operations Manager at Christian Super, where she had primary responsibility over their Property, Growth Alternatives and Growth Impact asset classes.

Grace holds Bachelor of Commerce, University of New South Wales and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance, Macquarie Applied Finance Centre.

24 years of experience in the Data Centre industry for companies such as Vertiv, CBRE and Gaw Capital. He has:

• Been involved in 50+ Data Centre construction projects across APAC for operators like Equinix, Digital Realty, AWS, AirTrunk, and Google.
• Built and scaled teams to support hyperscale operators across multiple countries.
• Led Data Centre Construction for a $1.3B investment fund overseeing large-scale development and execution.

With over 15 years of experience as a chartered Quantity Surveyor, Rebecca is a seasoned professional in the cost and commercial sector, currently as a director at Arcadis. Having worked extensively in both the UK and Australia, Rebecca has developed a comprehensive understanding of diverse sectors, with most recently a particular focus on providing cost advice to clients in the Date Centre space.

Throughout their career, Rebecca has demonstrated a commitment to excellence and a passion for delivering innovative solutions that enhance project value and efficiency. Their extensive experience equips them to navigate complex projects and foster strong client relationships, making them a trusted advisor in the ever-evolving landscape of construction and infrastructure.

Nic Guesnon is a Director at UBS, who joined Economics & Macro-strategy in 2021 covering the Australian & New Zealand economies. Nic has been #1 rated in Peter Lee's Survey of New Zealand Equity Investors for the past 2 years. UBS Economics was also #1 rated in the Peter Lee survey of Australian equity investors in 2023; & rated #2 in 2024. Prior to UBS, Nic worked at Commonwealth Bank for over a year as an Australian macro economist. Nic holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney and he is a CFA Charterholder. Nic also served in the Australian Army Reserves as a Lieutenant for the Royal Australian Infantry Corps.

Tom Bodor is an Executive Director and Head of the Australian Real Estate equity research team. Prior to re-joining UBS in 2019 he worked at Lendlease in Retirement Living and Group Strategy from 2012 to 2019. Previous UBS experience incudes equities research in the European Building Materials team (2011 to 2012) and the Australian Real Estate team (2008 to 2011).

He started his career in real estate IBD (2006 to 2008). Tom has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Honours) and Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) degrees from the University of Sydney.

Charlie joined Centuria Bass in May 2021 as Executive Director, responsible for deal origination. He has more than 20 years experience in origination, property development, investment and funds management.

Prior to joining Centuria Bass, Charlie was Executive Director at Gresham Partners, responsible for originating and managing both senior stretch loans and syndicated property investments. Before Gresham he held senior roles at Toga and Multiplex.

Charlie has a Bachelor of Laws from Bond University and Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Western Australia.

Drew is a credit asset management specialist in real estate credit, portfolio management and capital markets across multiple asset classes. Drew is a Certified Practicing Valuer and Fellow of the Australian Property Institute​​.

Drew has continuously worked in the real estate valuation and financing industry in Australia for in excess of 30 years, during which he has successfully completed an extensive array of real estate development and investment portfolio finance facilities, incorporating senior and structured credit and equity participations for both bank and non-bank institutions.

His career has spanned multiple real estate and credit cycles providing deep experience in the origination, structuring and exiting of positions through an array of macro-economic conditions.

Drew was previously responsible for real estate deal origination and active portfolio management at organisations including MaxCap Group, Pepper Group, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Macquarie Group.

Georgia is an Executive Director of Goldman Sachs’s recently announced Capital Solutions Group, leading the origination, structuring, execution, and distribution of asset-backed financings in Australia and New Zealand. She has over 11 years of experience in credit across real estate lending and real estate back leverage, asset-backed structured finance, leverage finance, fund financing and special situations. She joined Goldman Sachs in late 2020, having spent close to 7 years at Deutsche Bank working across their multi-product credit platform, as well as their cross-asset structured solutions group. She graduated in 2013 from the University of Sydney with a double degree in Commerce and Science.

Caroline is the Property Portfolio Manager at TelstraSuper. She joined TelstraSuper in the Real Assets team in 2020, previously covering the Infrastructure Portfolio in addition to Property. In 2022, Caroline received the Rising Star award from the Australian Institution of Superannuation Trustees. The award recognises the demonstration of leadership and innovation through the investment process in support of member outcomes.

Prior to joining TelstraSuper, Caroline was at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Real Estate Advisory team. In addition to PwC, Caroline has held various roles in consulting, development and real estate debt. Caroline holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Masters of Property.

Saurabh wears two hats at CDPQ. In his continuing role since March 2017 as the Managing Director, Infrastructure, Saurabh is leading CDPQ’s infrastructure activities in South Asia and Middle East and is responsible for strategy development, sourcing, evaluating, executing and managing high-quality infrastructure investments, as well as developing long-term partner relationships in these regions.

In his additional role as the Managing Director of CDPQ India (since March 2022), he takes an active role in positioning CDPQ as a partner of choice across asset classes - public equities (direct and indirect), debt, private equity, and infrastructure – while representing the organization in the financial and business community, as well as with key stakeholders including the government and the regulators.

Mr. Agarwal has over 21 years of investment and technology sector experience. Before joining CDPQ in 2017, he spent over 10 years at Morgan Stanley, most recently as Executive Director at Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP), a global infrastructure fund, playing a key role in acquiring and managing fund investments. Prior to this, he was a scientific researcher in supercomputer technology at IBM Research Labs and Wipro Global R&D Center.

Mr. Agarwal holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Michigan, a Master’s in Computer Science from Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Engineering from India’s National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. He currently serves as the Managing Director on the board of CDPQ India. He also serves as a non-executive director (NED) on the boards of A) Apprava Energy, B) Maple Infra InvIT Investment Manager Private Limited and C) Maple Highway Project Management Private Limited, certain investee companies of CDPQ in India. He has previously served as NED on the Boards of several investee companies of MSIP.