Roundtable Discussion – Investing in Indian REITs and Trends in APAC REITs

Sigrid is the Chief Executive Officer of Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA). Based in Singapore, she is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction, initiatives and operations of the association across Asia Pacific. Under her leadership, APREA repositioned to an industry trade group focusing on real estate and infrastructure.

Sigrid joined APREA’s executive team in January 2019.

Prior to APREA, she served as Managing Director of Asia Pacific Research and Advisory Services of Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) from 2010 through 2018, 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.

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 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, and serves in the Executive Committee of the Crohn’s & Colitis Society of Singapore.

Dominique Moerenhout is the CEO of EPRA (European Public Real Estate Association), the voice of the publicly traded European real estate sector. He has been active in the Pan-European real estate investment management sector for 25 years. Dominique joined EPRA in 2017, moving from BNP Paribas REIM where he held the CEO position for the BeNeLux. After working as a Portfolio Manager in a private bank followed by five years as an investment management consultant for KPMG Consulting, he joined Fortis Private Real Estate from 2004 until 2011 as the COO before becoming the COO of BNP Paribas Real Estate UK in 2011-2014.

He Bhairav has a varied experience in advising Indian and multinational groups in the area of Real Estate, Infrastructure and Private Equity. He has over 20 years of post-qualification experience in transaction and tax advisory services. Over the last 17 years his focus has been Real Estate.

Bhairav has also advised Real Estate companies on complex projects involving investment structuring and group restructuring. Given his experience, he has been extensively involved in the REIT / InvIT discussions in the industry and regulators as well. He has handled diverse assignments in the transaction and corporate restructuring space, involving:

• developing real estate fund structures and consummating their investments
• Redevelopment Projects (including SRA’s & Society re-development projects)
• Infra space such as bid structuring, private equity funding, re-structuring for Singapore BT listing M & A and Inbound advisory

Bhairav is a graduate in Commerce from the University of Mumbai and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India since 2002. He regularly speaks on Real Estate related topics before various forums, and contributes articles, interviews to several newspapers, magazines and business news channels.

Gautam qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1987 and had stints with two leading accounting and tax consultancy firms, which was followed by a long association of over 12 years with an independent practice founded by him. He joined PwC as a Partner in September 2003, and since then has held various roles including leading the India Tax and Regulatory practice between July 2015 and December 2020, prior to which he was leading the Tax and Regulatory practice in Western India and the Financial Services’ Tax and Regulatory group. He was also the Asset Management Sector leader for PwC in India. He presently leads the PwC global relationship for one of India’s largest conglomerates.

Over the years, Gautam has been working with multinational and domestic clients across a wide spectrum of services and has varied experience of over 30 years spanning multiple sectors.

Gautam is presently a member of SEBI’s Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee as well as of the SEBI HySec Committee dealing with REITs and InvITs. He is a Board member of the India Chapter of APREA, a regional Real Assets Industry Body and a member of the CII Committee on Private Equity. He has been a member of the American Chamber of Commerce, the National Direct Tax Committee of the Confederation of Indian Industry, as well as of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Gautam holds a postgraduate degree in law and financial management and is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Mr. Roberto Versace is the Chairperson of the Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA) Hong Kong Chapter and a company Director of APREA, positions held since 2021. Mr. Versace is also a member of the FTSE EPRA Nareit Asia Pacific Regional Advisory Committee and an Editorial Board member of Institutional Real Estate Inc. USA.

From 2017 to September 2023, Mr. Versace was the Managing Director and the Head of Listed Real Estate Asia Pacific at APG Asset Management Asia in Hong Kong. In this role, Mr. Versace was also a member of the APG Asia Executive Leadership Management Committee, the APG Global Real Estate Management Committee, the APG Asia Pacific Real Estate Management Committee and APG’s Global People and Culture Leadership Committee.

Prior to joining APG in 2017, Roberto was the Managing Director and Lead Portfolio Manager at EII Capital Management in London. From 2010 to 2015 Roberto was the Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager for Asia at BNY Mellon Investment Management in Singapore. Prior to BNY Mellon, Roberto was the Portfolio Manager for the NYSE Listed RMR Asia Pacific Real Estate funds on behalf of RMR Advisors (Boston) based in Sydney, Australia.

Roberto holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (Chicago) and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, a Masters of Science in Global Finance at NYU Stern School of Business (New York City) and the HKUST Business School (Hong Kong), and a Bachelor of Economics from The University of Adelaide (Australia).

Ankur Gupta is Head of Asia Pacific and Middle East for Brookfield’s Real Estate Group. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing all real estate activities in the region, including investments, portfolio management and new fund formation. He also has direct oversight of the South Asia sub-region.

Prior to joining Brookfield in 2012, Mr. Gupta worked for a leading real estate development firm.

Mr. Gupta holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.