With private and institutional investors from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Singapore buying into the reviving Tokyo real estate market the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management is about to join them.
Marthe Skaar a spokesperson for the bank in Oslo confirmed to the Asian Wealth Times yesterday evening that they plan to open an office in Tokyo within 2015. They are currently in the process of hiring and building out the team to be based in the Japanese capital.
With Abenomics, Bank of Japan monetary easing, potential integrated casino developments and the much anticipated 2020 Olympics acting as catalysts the Tokyo market has been receiving a lot of attention. Singaporean SWF late last year purchased a building next to Tokyo Station for $1.7 billion in a bet that the city’s real estate values will continue to rise.
The Norwegian fund owns real estate assets in central London, Paris, Switzerland, Germany and New York, Washington and Boston in the USA.