Investing for Growth – APAC real estate trends and insights

25 Nov 2025 @ Abu Dhabi

The ANREV inaugural Middle East event was successfully held on 25 November 2025 in Abu Dhabi.

This event aimed to provide an insightful afternoon focused on exploring growth markets in the APAC region, including Middle East, and the strategies employed to access these opportunities. The event will kick off with a macro real estate update in APAC, offering key insights into current trends and market conditions.

Following the update, we engaged in a panel discussion featuring industry experts who  shared their perspectives on opportunities across various markets and sectors, highlighting areas of growth and cross-cultural collaboration. 

Details

Date

Tuesday, 25 November 2025

Time

13:00 - 15:30 (Lunch included)

Venue

Marriott Hotel Downtown, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Fee

Free of charge for ANREV members and insitutional investor.

RSVP

This event is fully booked, please email [email protected] if you wish t be placed on waiting list. 

Note

This event is exclusively for ANREV members and institutional investors. Registrations will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and successful registrants will receive an email confirmation.

Speakers

Charles Haase
Chief Executive
ANREV

Charles Haase became Chief Executive of ANREV in 2022. Before joining ANREV, Haase was responsible for global client relationship management with Aetos Japan, LLC. Prior to that he was with Tokyu Fudosan Holdings Corporation in Tokyo, working on overseas investments for Tokyu Land Corporation and on inbound investment for Tokyu Livable, Inc. Before coming to Tokyo, Haase was a real estate investment officer with the California State Teachers' Retirement System, and served on the economics faculty at San Francisco State University. Haase has a Ph.D. in economics from University of California at Davis.

Ashank Kothari
Managing Director
Brookfield

Ashank Kothari is a Managing Director in Brookfield’s Real Estate Group. In this role, he is responsible for new investments, strategy and asset management initiatives across various real estate asset classes in India.

Mr. Kothari joined Brookfield in 2017 and has led a wide range of investments across strategies at the platform, portfolio and property level. Prior to Brookfield, Mr. Kothari worked for a global private equity firm in New York.

Mr. Kothari holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Virginia, McIntire School of Commerce.

Arjun Pandit
Managing Director, Private Funds
CapitaLand Investment

Arjun Pandit is responsible for managing the real estate private debt funds business at CapitaLand Investment.

Arjun is one of the most experienced commercial real estate professional in Asia Pacific with a consistent track record over 20 years in establishing, running and managing businesses related to commercial mortgage and asset backed lending, hard assets investing, real estate operating platforms and distressed debt investment platforms across the breadth of asset classes over business cycles. Over this period, Arjun has participated in over US$20 billion of real estate related transactions, including some of the largest commercial real estate financings in the region.

Prior to CapitaLand, Arjun was the head of the Asia Pacific asset finance group at Credit Suisse, where he was responsible for managing the lending platform across the region with a primary focus on Australia, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and India. Under his leadership, the bank commenced, for the first time post global financial crises, non-recourse real estate lending activities in Asia Pacific. Arjun was also a member of the bank’s Asia Pacific asset finance capital commitments committee.

Prior to Credit Suisse, Arjun was the Asia Pacific head of global mortgages and securitized products at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was in-charge of managing commercial and residential mortgage platforms in Japan, Korea and Australia, and led some of the largest buyout related financing transactions in the region.

Prior to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Arjun was a key member of Morgan Stanley’s Asia Pacific commercial real estate mezzanine lending team, where he was involved in some of the largest financing transactions in Japan and Australia. Arjun started his real estate career in Asia Pacific, post Asian financial crisis, at Lehman Brother’s principal transaction team based in Japan. He was one of the early members of a business platform that went on to establish itself as one of the leading distressed debt and real estate investment platforms in the region.

Arjun received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from University of Delhi in India and a Masters of Business Administration from the Australian Graduate School of Management, University of New South Wales in Australia.

Crystal Palar
Executive Managing Director, Asia
CBRE

Crystal provides strategic direction and facilitates cross-border capital flows with CBRE’s leading in-country teams across Asia. She has over 20 years of real estate experience.

She was most recently with JLL as an Executive Director, Asia Pacific Capital Markets. Crystal started in JLL Shanghai where she worked on research and office leasing before moving to investment sales and advisory. She relocated to JLL Singapore in 2008, and has since been has involved in several large single asset and portfolio deals across the region with transaction value exceeding US$20B across all institutional asset classes – office, retail, logistics and multifamily.

Elizabeth Di Cioccio
Managing Director - Capital Markets, EMEA
Gaw Capital Partners

Ms. Elizabeth Di Cioccio joined Gaw Capital as the Managing Director - Capital Markets, EMEA since April 2024. In her role, she is responsible for the capital markets division for the Europe and Middle East region, driving strategic initiatives and fostering key relationships. She markets Gaw Capital’s global products across different asset classes, particularly in infrastructure sector and beyond.
 
With nearly 20 years of experience in the financial sector, Ms. Di Cioccio has a proven track record of success in capital markets. Prior to joining Gaw Capital, Ms. Di Cioccio served as the Head of Middle East and Managing Director at KKR & Co. Inc. During her tenure, she oversaw KKR's business in the Middle East, focusing on raising capital from GCC-based sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and other government and institutional clients. Her exceptional relationship management skills led her to raise over $10 billion during her tenure at KKR. Elizabeth also managed KKR's teams in Dubai and Riyadh.
 
Before her tenure at KKR, Ms. Di Cioccio was a Partner at Mercury Capital Advisors in Dubai, where she successfully opened the firm's Dubai office and was responsible for distributing private equity, real estate, infrastructure, private credit, and hedge funds in the Middle East, the Nordic region, the UK, and Australasia. Ms. Di Cioccio's earlier career includes positions at Jefferies International and Merrill Lynch International.
 
Ms. Di Cioccio holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude from Middlebury College.

Kenny Sim
Executive Director, Investments, Asia
IGIS Asia Investment Management

Kenny Sim is responsible for the deal origination, structuring of investment deals and partnerships and investments execution across Korea, Japan, Singapore and Australia for IGIS Asia Investment Management, the strategic Asia investment arm of IGIS Asset Management. Kenny joined IGIS Asia in 2021 and has over 18 years of real estate market investment experience in Asia.

Kenny is also responsible for the creation of new investment platforms and JV ventures or partnerships, focusing on thematic investment vehicles for data centers, living, hospitality, life science, logistics, debt or special situation credit, while assisting to grow the business capabilities and asset under management for IGIS Asia.

Prior to IGIS Asia, Kenny was in the investments team in Straits Real Estate where he was investing and managing investment deals in Korea, Japan, Australia and China across various sectors in logistics, offices, rental residential and retail. Earlier in his career, Kenny was part of the TH Real Estate Asia team (now renamed as Nuveen) where he was involved in the investment management of its outlet mall vehicle and its value-add Asia Fund vehicle with regional properties held across gateway cities in Asia.

Junho Lee
Founder & Managing Director
Mocean Capital

Junho Lee has 19 years of experience in business development and private equity real estate capital formation. He is the Founder and Managing Director of Mocean Capital, SFC licensed capital advisory firm. Before founding Mocean Capital, Junho was Group Head of Capital Raising & Investor Relations at Chelsfield Group. Prior to that, he worked at Grosvenor, overseeing capital raising and investor relationships in Asia. He is a member of ANREV, chairs its Membership Committee, and serves on the Advisory Board of Art Partners. He holds an MSc in Real Estate from the University of Hong Kong and a BSc in International Business from Maastricht University. 

Priyank Shah
Head of Fund Management & Strategic Business Development
Rava Partners / Logicap Management

Priyank Shah is head of fund management and strategic business development at Rava Partners/ Logicap Management. Rava Partner’s new economy focused real estate private equity fund is actively deploying across Asia Pacific as well as in the middle east. Shah joined Rava in 2023 after nearly 14 years at JLL in Singapore and India covering cross boarder equity advisory across the Asia Pacific region and a brief stint as a interest rate derivatives trader at the start of his career.

In his current role he looks after capital partnerships and business development for new investments to grow out the fund management business within the Rava portfolio companies in the new economy sectors as well as looks after Logicap its India focused logistics platform.

Shah has over 16+ years of experience having worked with several large capital providers and real estate platforms advising them on their investment strategies.

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