Shern-Ling Koh and Julian Mittag joined Principal Real Estate Investors in Singapore as portfolio managers with the firm's global real estate property securities team.
The two will focus on identifying investment opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region for the global team.
The appointments of Messrs. Koh and Mittag lift the number of portfolio managers and analysts on Principal's global REIT team to 13, a net gain of one from the year before, confirmed Andrea Muller, Singapore-based chief executive of parent company Principal Global Investors, in a telephone interview.
In April 2013, Singapore-based senior portfolio manager Alistair Gillespie left Principal Real Estate Investors to join BlackRock as a managing director and chief investment officer of Asia Pacific Real Estate Securities, confirmed Anthony Arthur, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for BlackRock.
According to a Principal news release, Mr. Koh had been CEO and chief investment officer at OSK International Asset Management in Singapore. Ho Seng Yee, the Kuala Lumpur-based CEO of OSK parent company RHB Investment Management, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Mr. Mittag was a portfolio manager at SEB Asset Management in Singapore. SEB spokeswoman Brigitte Schroll couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Ms. Muller said the expansion of Principal’s global REIT team comes as strong net inflows of almost $1 billion over the past year have lifted the team’s assets under management to well over $5 billion.
As of Sept. 30, Principal Real Estate Investors’ overall commercial real estate AUM stood at $47.8 billion.
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