Cushman, Premas Join to Tap Chinese Market

Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the second-largest U.S. real estate company, formed a joint venture with Premas International Ltd. to provide real estate brokerage and other services to companies expanding in China.

The venture will offer consulting, brokerage and asset management to international firms doing business in China and Chinese firms looking to expand abroad, Cushman spokesman Terry Spillane said. The operation will have offices in Shanghai and Beijing and will operate under the name Cushman & Wakefield Premas.

U.S. firms are expanding internationally as the real estate services industry consolidates worldwide. In 1998, Cushman acquired London-based Healy & Baker for $112 million to gain offices in 14 European and Middle Eastern countries. Insignia/ESG Holdings Inc., Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis Services Inc., which is the biggest U.S. real estate company, and Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. have expanded overseas in recent years.

The venture with Premas will let Cushman expand its asset management services in a country where the gross domestic product is growing at an 8% annual rate, said John Coppedge, Cushman’s executive vice president of international operations. “They have 175 people in China. We couldn’t replicate that in two years.”

Until now, Coppedge said, Cushman has served primarily as a tenant representative in China.

Anthony Seah, chief executive of Premas, will serve as the venture’s chairman, and Michael Thompson, group chief executive of Cushman & Wakefield Asia Pacific, will be its managing director.

Premas is a subsidiary of CapitalLand Ltd., a Singapore-based property management company. Cushman & Wakefield is a unit of Mitsubishi Estate Co. of Tokyo, a real estate investment firm. The venture won’t start to operate until Chinese authorities approve it.