Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with Aquaint Capital Holdings Limited (ASX:AQU) Executive Director and Group CEO, Yang Po TanLelde Smits: Hello I’m Lelde Smits for the Finance News Network and joining me from Aquaint Capital Holdings Limited
(ASX:AQU) is its Executive Director and Group CEO, Yang Po Tan. Yang Po welcome to Sydney and to the Finance News Network.
Yang Po Tan: Thank you so much for having me.
Lelde Smits: Yang Po could you start by introducing Aquaint Capital. What exactly does the company do?
Yang Po Tan: Under Aquaint Capital Limited, which is listed in the ASX Stock Exchange, we actually have three businesses. One of them is a fund company, whereby we raise funds from the public. The other one is property investment, where we actively invest in property in most places that is distressed. And the third nature is a property management company where we actually help manage our assets, as well as other peoples’ assets, to ensure that we not only preserve the value of the asset, but more importantly it will help increase asset value as well.
Lelde Smits: Why did Aquaint Capital choose to list in Australia and not Singapore?
Yang Po Tan: Very good question. The reason why we decided to list in Australia is because in Singapore most of the time it’s one business, one listing. For example, if you are a property investment company you are listed as a property investment company, whereas in our business we have three businesses. So in order to list it under one company and list that holding company, it is not very common in Singapore. Whereas in Australia, it is very common. Most of the property investment companies in Australia also do fund management as well. So we thought we want to list in a country that people understand our business, rather than a country that may not understand our business.
Lelde Smits: How is Acquaint Capital’s business different to other real estate investment trusts?
Yang Po Tan: A lot of property investment companies, they focus in countries as well as the sector of the property. So for example people invest in Australia, they focus on for example just industrial. Whereas for us, we focus on distress or turn-around cities as well as the below market value property, all distressed assets. And we do not limit ourself to a certain sector, so that’s the main difference.
Lelde Smits: Where are Acquaint Capital’s assets currently located and where are you targeting for future growth?
Yang Po Tan: Currently our assets principally are in US, UK as well as Germany, India and we are in the midst of acquiring Malaysia. Moving forward, we are looking at places like Myanmar which is again a corridor growth. We are looking at Japan, which is a turn-around country. We are also looking at Indonesia which is also a corridor growth right now, because the new government just came in. So they are aggressively growing their economy, people are getting confident in their country. And the other place that we really love to have something is of course Australia, because the fact that we are listed here, we would like to also be able to do something here in Australia.
Lelde Smits: Yang Po you mentioned Australia, property prices are quite high. Where would you consider looking for opportunities?
Yang Po Tan: Right now Australia is kind of like on the transition point, whereby in the main cities the prices are pretty high. So for example Sydney/Melbourne prices are very high, however, are there still opportunities? Yes because on the outskirts there’re still pretty affordable properties, as well as they’re below market value that we can potentially tap into. So for these two cities, we’re looking at the outskirts. Whereas like Brisbane and Perth, we potentially are looking at their city centre. Reason because, Brisbane is a developing city, a lot of businesses in Melbourne are moving to Brisbane because of the cost factor.
So we feel that there’s still room for growth in Brisbane, that’s why we are targeting the city area. The same for Perth, because right now Perth, the government is injecting a lot in terms of infrastructure, so it’s a rejuvenating city, a regenerating city. So that’s why we would like to look at the city centre in places like Perth, where we think we can still get good value assets.
Lelde Smits: Finally Yang Po, what are Acquaint Capital’s immediate priorities?
Yang Po Tan: We would like to still primarily focus in our property investment. However, as you know as I mentioned earlier on, we also have a property management arm. So what we want to do is to grow this property management arm, because when you invest in property, you buy and sell property, you get good income some years. If you don’t sell, you don’t have very good income. So we want to have a stable income, and stable and recurring income. That’s why we are building the fund part of our business, as well as the property management part of the business, so that we can have more stable and recurring income.
Lelde Smits: Yang Po, thank you so much for the update from Acquaint Capital.
Yang Po Tan: Thank you so much for having me.
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