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Mirae
Asset Buys 43-Story Building in San Francisco
 
Mirae Asset MAPS Investments, Korea's first manager of real estate funds,
acquired a skyscraper located in the financial district of San Francisco,
California.
It acquired the building, named ``Citigroup Center,'' in the Financial
District near Union Square from a U.S. private equity fund.
This is the first acquisition made by a Korean real estate fund.
The center was originally developed by Citigroup, a U.S. financial services
company, and was later acquired by a private equity fund. The company did
not reveal the name of the fund.
``We can't reveal the fund until we fully close the acquisition deal,'' said
Choi Chang-hoon, head of global acquisitions division at Mirae Asset MAPS,
an affiliate of Mirae Asset Investments, the country's largest mutual fund
manager.
The building is 43 stories high with a floor space of over 68,000 square
meters, and is one of the five main buildings in San Francisco's financial
district. It is worth about $370 million (370 billion won). But the official
said its net value could change slightly as the two sides seal the deal.
Mirae Asset signed a contract to acquire the skyscraper through its real
estate fund from the U.S. private equity fund last Friday.
Mirae Asset MAPS fund was launched in 2007 with assets under management of
430 billion won, and has invested in properties located not only in Korea,
but also in Hong Kong and China.
Its acquisition of Citigroup Center comes as the U.S. property market is
undergoing corrections due to subprime mortgage defaults, and such buildings
are too good to miss for Mirae Asset as they were on the market at 10 to 15
percent less than last year's property value, it noted.
The purchase is reminiscent of when foreign capital bought Korean buildings
during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.
``When the financial market in the U.S. stabilizes, the value of the
building is likely to hike and boost our investment gains,'' said Choi in a
press release.
With the acquisition, Mirae Asset MAPS plans to launch the ``Global Real
Estate Fund'' investing in properties with growth potential around the
world. - 2008 May
21 KOREA
TIMES
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