The Asian Public Real Estate Association has appointed Peter Mitchell as the regional industry body’s chief executive.
Mitchell, who will be based in Singapore, will lead the association in promoting, representing and developing the publicly traded real estate sector in the Asia Pacific region.
Launched in 2005, APREA is the first pan-Asian association formed with the aim of improving conditions for the development of the real estate industry, providing investors with better information and enhancing the transparency of the market.
APREA is modeled on its sister organizations, the European Public Real Estate Association and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts in the United States.
The association is supported by industry leaders including ARA Asset Managers, Ascendas REIT, Ayala Land, Henderson Global Investors, Hongkong Land, Macquarie Group, Mitsubishi Corp-UBS Realty, Morgan Stanley, SM Prime, UBS and Westfield Group. The association now has more than 60 members.
“With Peter on board, we are confident that APREA will build an even stronger presence in Asia and achieve our objectives of representing and raising awareness of the sector,” APREA’s president Alfred Liu said.
Mitchell has extensive regional experience in advising on real estate transactions, having been involved in deals in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, China, Thailand and Indonesia.
He has been involved in the establishment of and ongoing advisory work for a number of listed property trusts in Australia, was involved in the establishment of the first Singapore REIT and prior to joining APREA was involved in REIT projects in Singapore and Malaysia.
He also assisted the Malaysian Securities Commission in its consultation processes in 1999 and 2002, which led to the reformulation of that country’s guidelines, and was involved in the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission consultation process which led to the formulation of the Hong Kong REIT code.
“The Asian REIT market is growing at a rapid pace and one of our challenges is to raise the industry standard in the region to make it more competitive with the global industry,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell holds economics and law degrees from Monash University in Australia and is admitted to practice as a lawyer in all states of Australia and England and Wales. Prior to joining APREA he was a consultant with a major Singapore commercial law firm and prior to that was a senior partner with one of the largest Australian law firms for over 20 years.
By Nelson Yap
