APREA Virtual Roadshow – Voice of Real Estate – Session 5: Data Centers

Geraldine is head of the Real Estate practice group in Singapore. She has been advising on corporate real estate, conveyancing and commercial-related matters for more than 30 years. Geraldine has a wealth of experience in corporate real estate transactions, including trust, en bloc, sale and purchase of commercial, residential and industrial land and properties, financings, structuring for complex land issues and joint ventures for property development in Singapore, Malaysia and in the UK. She has advised extensively on commercial leasing as well as the development of commercial, residential and industrial properties. She is also very well-versed in the establishment of data centres. 
 
Geraldine has extensive experience in complex real estate matters, especially in the application to JTC, Singapore's largest industrial landlord and statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, for industrial land in Singapore. She was once a legal advisor with JTC and the Singapore Technologies group of companies. She works regularly with property developers, including Chinese and South East Asian developers, REITs, global multinationals, Asian conglomerates, and high net worth individuals.
 
In addition to having an impressive track record in the Singapore real estate market, Geraldine has deep cross-border experience that spans across Asia Pacific, Europe, UK, South Africa, and the Middle East. She has worked extensively on matters relating to retail conveyancing, mixed-used developments, land planning , tenders and infrastructure.
 
Leading legal directories Chambers Asia Pacific and Legal 500 Asia Pacific have both recognised Geraldine as a leading lawyer in the Singapore real estate market, noting that she is "a very commercially minded practitioner". A client appreciates that "she takes a very common-sense approach to dealing with things, understands business needs, and does a great job of taking control and ownership of things."

Christopher was formerly the Associate General Counsel in Digital Realty, where he was in charge of the legal operations in Asia Pacific and Europe including acquisitions, leasing, regulatory, corporate office space management, vendor/partnership agreements, employment, data security, data privacy, GDPR compliance, and other technology related contracts. Chris also managed the Digital Realty’s data centre operations in Singapore and also had data centre working experience in Japan, EMEA and the U.S. 
 
Prior to joining Digital Realty, Chris had substantial experience acting as external counsel to represent many Fortune 500 companies, private equity funds, and technology companies in data centre transactions and related real estate transactions.

A Corporate M&A lawyer by background, Chris is now a partner in the Tokyo office's Real Estate group focusing on cross-border real estate M&A and other transactions, particularly in the hotel and data center industries. 
 
Chris has over 20 years' experience advising clients on cross-border transactions across a range of industry sectors in Japan.
 
His data center experience includes advising Colt on its acquisition of the Japan-based multi-jurisdiction KVH business and assisting hyperscale owner/operators with data center development projects in Japan.
 
Chris has also assisted Asia-based investors in acquiring hotel properties (including some the largest single asset transactions) in Japan and is experienced in the use of W&I insurance on real estate transactions in Japan.
 
Chris received his BA (Honors) and LLB from Monash University. He is admitted to practice law in Victoria and New South Wales of Australia. Chris is registered in Japan as a Gaikokuho Jimu Bengoshi (licensed foreign law specialist) and is fluent in Japanese.
 
Chris is a vice-chair of the Tokyo Bar Association's International Committee and served for a decade on the Ministry of Justice's Japanese Law Translation Council until March 2020.

Vladimir Pushmin joined Arloid Automation in 2017 to drive the execution of established strategic initiatives and ensure that they are aligned with the company’s long-term plans. Eventually, Vladimir became responsible for driving an AI solution development, investment activities and solution’s market roll-out. Before joining Arloid Automation, Vladimir was a part of an energy strategy consulting firm, working on large scale research and consulting projects for international energy companies and government bodies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Studies from London Cass Business School. 

Sunil is an Engineering graduate from NIT Kurukshetra, India and Management graduate from Columbia University, New York. Known as ‘India’s Data Center Man’, he has unmatched experience in the Data Center, Cloud and Managed IT Services industry and is best known as the person who has built and operated the most number of (more than 20) third party data centers in India. Sunil Gupta has been featured in the illustrious Data Economy’s APAC 50 list and is one of the 100 personalities to watch out for in the next decade who are posed to heavily influence the direction and transformation of the global data center and cloud markets.

Sunil is currently the Managing Partner & CEO of Yotta Infrastructure, a Hiranandani Group Company. Under his vision, Yotta was formed with the mission to power India’s digital economy, driven by data. Yotta has been powering the digital eco-system with Data Storage and compute capacity via India’s largest Uptime certified Tier IV Hyper-scale data center park in Maharashtra, India and also upcoming in Tamilnadu, India.

Besides creating the largest data center parks in India, Sunil has also chalked out disruptive technology portfolio solutions for varied industries at economical prices under Yotta Tech. For the very first time in India, Sunil is instrumental in offering Data Center Build services on the colocation model, which Hyper-scalers and cloud players can utilize without blocking their Capex and still get the same dedicated tailor-made infrastructure.

Sunil is an elected member of Nasscom's National Domestic Council and is also an angel investor, as part of the CIO Angel Network (CAN), and loves to invest in and promote start-ups operating in new technology areas like AI/ML, IoT, Big Data & Analytics.

Sunil has also authored the “Financial model for understanding data center investments” – an in-depth mathematical model that helps the C-Suite make informed data center investment decisions.

Daniel Feldmann joined Hazelview Investments (formerly Timbercreek Equities Corp) in February 2012 as Analyst, Global Real Estate Securities.  Daniel is based in the Hong Kong office and in his current role is responsible for co-managing Hazelview’s global real estate securities strategies, the financial analyses, valuation and investment recommendation of global real estate sectors and securities.

Daniel has over 12 years of experience in finance, accounting and capital markets and has worked in the public real estate investment market since 2010. Daniel was responsible for Hazelview’s European real estate securities coverage in the Zurich office before transferring to Hong Kong in June 2016 to establish the company's local Asian presence. Prior to joining Hazelview, Daniel was an Analyst of global real estate securities at 4IP Management AG, an Analyst of global real estate securities at Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. Corporate Finance (Switzerland) AG and a Funds Analyst at UBS AG.

Daniel holds a Bachelor of Arts in Banking and Finance, a Master of Arts in Economics and Business Administration and a Ph.D in Business Administration from the University of Zurich. 

Thomas was one of the founding members of Standard Chartered Bank’s Principal Finance Real Estate group in 2010 and joined Actis in 2018 when the business was acquired from the bank. He leads the teams in Shanghai, Seoul and Hong Kong that have completed over USD700 million in opportunistic real estate investments in China and Korea, working with leading developers and high quality operating partners.

Prior to Actis, Thomas has accumulated over two decades of pan-Asian direct investment and advisory experience. He started his career with the Shangri-La group, working on hotel pre-opening projects across Southeast Asia and China. He then joined PKF Consulting and advised Asian developers and owners on projects from India to Indonesia and the Philippines and China. In 1998 he joined the Koos Group and, for nine years, took on different leadership roles in financial advisory as well as direct investment functions in Hong Kong, Thailand, Korea and China for this leading Asian family group. Thomas moved to Beijing in 2004 when he took over the leadership of a real estate development business controlled by the Koos, completed and sold projects including offices, high end residential, hotel and serviced apartments in the greater Beijing and Shanghai areas. He then joined Aetos Capital in 2007 as one of the senior members of the China investment team before joining Standard Chartered Bank in 2010.

Thomas holds a master degree in business administration from the joint Kellogg-HKUST EMBA program and acquired dual bachelor degrees in finance and hospitality from Boston University.

Sigrid is the Chief Executive Officer of Asia Pacific Real Estate Association (APREA). Based in Singapore, she is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction, initiatives and operations of the association across Asia Pacific.

Sigrid joined APREA’s executive team in January 2019. A recognized expert in global economic, public policy and real estate issues, Sigrid is a frequent speaker at industry events. Her commentary on commercial and residential real estate markets is also regularly featured in a wide array of global publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, New York Times and Reuters. Additionally, she has made several television appearances on financial networks and radio such as CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, National Public Radio and Channel News Asia.

Sigrid brings to APREA more than 20 years of experience in economic and real estate research, consulting and business strategy. From 2010 through 2018, she served as Managing Director of Asia Pacific Research and Advisory Services of Cushman & Wakefield (C&W), where she was responsible for research, thought leadership, strategy formulation and client management. Before relocating to Singapore, she was based in Washington, D.C. and led C&W’s U.S. research group in the Mid- Atlantic region, overseeing all aspects of market research activities in the Washington, DC; Virginia; Suburban Maryland, Baltimore; and Philadelphia areas. Prior to joining C&W, Sigrid served as a Senior Economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In that position, she developed NAR’s office, warehouse, retail, multi-family housing, and international research programs.

Sigrid holds a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and a Master’s degree in Economics from Pennsylvania State University. She is a member of several civic groups including the Rotary Club of Raffles City in Singapore, where she has served in various leadership positions.