Spotlight on Southeast Asia Logistics at Mingtiandi Singapore Forum

Following the pandemic Southeast Asia has seen a boom in manufacturing as investors diversify supply chains with industrial developers in Vietnam and Indonesia having been some of the leading beneficiaries of this market shift.

During the third quarter foreign direct investment into Indonesia, excluding investment in banking and the oil and gas sectors, increased by 16.2 percent year-on-year to a record IDR 196.2 trillion ($12.38 billion) according to government figures, while in Vietnam pledges of new FDI jumped 14.7 percent in the first 10 months of the year to reach $25.76 billion, with much of this driven by global manufacturers diversifying their supply chains.

These shifts are providing opportunities for developers of warehouses and workshops to build and operate warehouses and workshops to serve the needs of Southeast Asia’s growing manufacturing sector, with the region’s industrial markets set to be the focus of two sessions at the Mingtiandi Singapore Forum on 14 November.

In a spotlight interview Mingtiandi founder Michael Cole will sit down with Fan Li, a Warburg Pincus managing director based in Singapore along with top executives from BW Industrial of Vietnam and NWP Property of Indonesia, both portfolio companies of the US private equity giant to gain insights on how the investment firm is working with the two startups to build new development platforms.

Then later that morning a panel on Southeast Asia will feature Jai Mirpuri, head of Singapore development and of Thailand for Hong Kong-listed logistics specialist ESR, Mark Gladu, senior director for logistics and industrial capital markets for Asia Pacific at JLL and Sharon Tan a local principal with law firm Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow for a discussion moderated by Yardi regional director Bernie Devine.

24 Industry Leaders to Appear

With Mingtiandi’s Singapore forum just two weeks away, the industrial sessions are a key feature of the full-day event, which is sponsored by Yardi and features 24 speakers from some of the largest real estate investors globally.

Added to the speaker roster in recent days is Rushabh Desai, chief executive of Varsity Group Asia Pacific, who joins a panel on lodging investment which also features Suchad Chiaranussati, founder and chairman of SC Capital Partners and Sarah Winbur, senior portfolio manager with APG Asset Management.

Also new to the list are ESR Group chief investment officer Josh Daitch and David Green-Morgan, global head of real assets research at MSCI, both of whom will participate in a panel on Singapore’s growing importance as a hub for international capital alongside Jeun Jye Ong, head of real estate with Sun Venture and Kian Jin Khoo, head of private wealth with the Capital Markets team for Asia Pacific at JLL.

The forum, which also features sessions on Singapore commercial markets and private credit strategies, as well as a keynote panel featuring speakers from Ivanhoe Cambridge, KIC, Oxford Properties and Savills, is expected to attract more than 200 on-location attendees, with another 500 set to tune in via Mingtiandi’s MTD TV video platform.

Vietnam, Indonesia Opportunities

Appearing alongside’s Warburg Pincus’ Fan Li in the spotlight interview session will be Fion Ng, chief operating officer for BW Industrial and Kevin Kow, group chief executive and president director with NWP Property.

Warburg Pincus teamed up with Vietnamese state-owned builder Becamex IDC Corp to establish BW in 2018 and by early this year the company had around $2 billion in gross assets under management and had positioned itself as the country’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play logistics and industrial developer.

Originally specialising in modern retail projects in Indonesia, NWP Property in March of last year launched a joint venture with a Japanese warehouse developer to establish a logistics platform seeded with a pre-leased, build-to-suit warehouse project in Jakarta.