Singapore Thought Leadership Committee

Dennis heads up the Asia Pacific Investor Services business in Cushman & Wakefield where he aims to grow the company’s clientele base in the region and maintain a close relationship with existing investor clients, securing good yielding investments for their real estate portfolio as well as extending Cushman & Wakefield’s full suite of property-related services such as valuation and property & facility management for their properties.

With more than three decades of real estate brokerage and advisory experience, Dennis has built up an impressive network of clients who look to him and his team for real estate advice, especially in the logistics and industrial sector. Working closely with Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets teams globally, he brings investment opportunities to investors, acting on behalf of corporations, REITs, funds and institutions.

Mr. Christian Bernasconi is a Founding Partner of B&I Capital AG and is based in Singapore where he acts a group co-CIO and head of the research office. Christian has over 27 years of experience as an Asian and Japanese equities specialist and has been based in Switzerland and Singapore over his career. Prior to co-founding B&I Capital in 2007, Christian was an Executive Director at UBS and established the Japan and Asian Equity Sales platform and was part of the Global Real Estate (RE) Team in Zurich. Before joining UBS in 2000, Christian was with W.I. Carr Far East Limited, Paribas Asia Equity and Yamaichi Securities. He received a Bachelors degree in Political Economy of Industrial Societies at the University of California at Berkeley.  

Headquartered in Zurich with a research office in Singapore, B&I Capital AG was founded in 2007 by Christian Bernasconi and Charles Isaac to give qualified investors a means to invest in Asian listed Real Estate, predominantly the nascent Asian REIT market. At that time REITs were an emerging asset class in developed equity markets such as Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, and a more mature REIT market in Australia.  B&I Capital is well regarded as an active investor that engages with the managements of the companies it invests in to encourage best practice and is also an active member of APREA which promotes the development of the listed Asian Real Estate sector.  Currently B&I Capital employs 15 people and manages USD >1bn worth of assets and is licensed both in Switzerland by FINMA and in Singapore as a CMS License holder by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Neil Brookes was appointed the Asia Pacific Head of Capital Markets at Knight Frank in December 2013. He is responsible for undertaking the sale of major assets in the world to investors in the Asia Pacific region. Brookes has over 16 years of experience working on international real estate commercial transactions within the US, Europe and Asia Pacific, and has been responsible for major cross-border transactions totalling over US$3 billion. His main focus has been sourcing investors from Asia Pacific to purchase major commercial properties in key gateway cities. Backed by his solid knowledge and dealings with Asia Pacific-based investors, Brookes has a sound understanding of the financial markets, specifically capital raising and fund structuring relevant to property acquisitions. Some of the key transactions in the first half of 2018 which Brookes has brokered include the disposal of 127 Creek Street in Brisbane and 80 Grenfell Street in Adelaide for Blackstone; and the disposal of 52 Goulburn Street in Sydney for Credit Suisse. Brookes is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He holds a property economics degree from Oxford Brookes University and a Diploma in Applied Finance & Investment from the Australian Securities Institute. Recent deals: 127 Creek Street, Brisbane – sold to Firmus Capital for AU$130 million (US$95 million) 80 Grenfell Street, Adelaide – sold to Centuria Capital Group & The Leader Capital Group for AU$184.6 million (US$135.7 million) 52 Goulburn Street, Sydney – sold to Arcadia for AU$176 million (US$129 million) 66 Goulburn Street, Sydney – sold to Ascendas-Singbridge for AU$252 million (US$185 million) Mansion Portfolio, UK – sold to Mapletree for £365 million(US$479 million)

Tien Foo is Professor of Real Estate, Head of Department of Real Estate, and Director of Institute of Real Estate and Urban Studies (IREUS) at National University of Singapore (NUS). He is currently the President of Asian Real Estate Society (AsRES) (2019-Present), and has been the board members of AsRES since 2000, and Global Chinese Real Estate Congress (GCREC) since 2008. He served on the ASSA-AREUEA Conference Program Committee (2013, 2019) and AREUEA Membership Committee (2014). He is the Editor of the International Real Estate Review, an official journal of AsRES and GCREC, and serves on the editorial boards of Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Journal of Real Estate Research, Journal of Property Research, Pacific Rim Property Research Journal, and Journal of Housing Studies (Taiwan).  Tien Foo was awarded the “Outstanding Referee 2017” for Real Estate Economics.

Tien Foo has published more than 90 peer-reviewed papers in international refereed journals including Management Science, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Finance, Journal of Financial Services Research, American Economic Review (P&P), Journal Urban Economics, Urban Studies, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Energy Economics, Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Journal of Housing Economics, and Journal of Real Estate Research. Tien Foo co-authored two books: “Kiasunomics” and “Kiasunomics 2”, together with Sumit Agarwal and Swee Hoon Ang, which are written around daily life stories of typical Singaporean families based on research works done using Singapore’s data.

Tien Foo serves as a member of the Panel of Assessors of the Appeal Board (Land Acquisition), Ministry of Law, Singapore (since 2010), and a member of the Valuation Review Board (VRB), Ministry of Finance, Singapore (2019). He was a member of the Professional Development Committee of the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA), Ministry of National Development (2014-2018). He is the co‐founder and the principal investigator of NUS‐REDAS Real Estate Sentiment Index (launched in 2010). He serves as the Honorary Advisor of the PropTech Association of Singapore (SPTA) (2018) and the Singapore Estate Agencies Association (SEEA) (2019-2021).

He is the Post-doctoral Honorees (2012) and the Fellow (2017) of the US-based Weimer School of Advanced Studies in Real Estate and Land Economics, the Homer Hoyt Institute.

Tien Foo obtains his Doctor of Philosophy degree from University of Cambridge, U.K. with the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust scholarship and the Overseas Research Students award. He also holds a Master of Philosophy (Dist.) degree in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge, U.K., and a Bachelor of Science degree with 1^st Class Honors in Estate Management from National University of Singapore.