Invesco makes senior Hong Kong appointment

Lau Cheng-Soon has joined Invesco Real Estate Asia in a newly created position as managing director in its Hong Kong office. He will be responsible for executing the overall real-estate strategy in Asia and supporting InvescoÆs property thrust worldwide.

He joins Invesco from Ayala International Holdings, the publicly traded conglomerate in the Philippines, where he was in charge of Asia-Pacific property investments. As well as handling investment property portfolios, he has also been busy in property development, notably in Shanghai where he masterminded the first land-use rights agreement granted to a foreign joint venture in order to develop local housing.

Lau reports to David Ridley, managing partner for InvescoÆs real-estate team. Ridley says it is making this hiring at this time in order to reflect the expansion in the real-estate asset class in the Asian region. The introduction of real-estate investment trusts in several Asian countries necessitates having to have a bigger property investment team, and that further hires may be made if the Asian real-estate investment sector continues to develop in sophistication and size.

Invesco provides real estate investment advice and manages $24 billion of real estate and quoted securities in property companies. It is part of Amvescap, a global investment manager which operates also under the AIM and Atlantic Trust names. It has offices in several Asian countries and has a joint venture in China.