India and Malaysia have emerged as key destinations for warehouse investors and developers seeking growth opportunities, according to speakers from Rava Partners, Northmod and Colliers at Mingtiandi’s 2025 APAC Logistics Forum on Tuesday. Watch the full recording>>
Demographic trends and sustained GDP growth of 6 to 7 percent are driving industrial demand in the world’s most populous country, the guests told MTD TV viewers during the forum, which is sponsored by Yardi. At the same time, Malaysia is attracting shed investment with policy moves like January’s launch of the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone, which aims to add 100 projects within a decade to the area near the border with the country’s southern neighbour.
In terms of India’s market dynamics, the cities of Pune and Chennai have seen activity centred on manufacturing while Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi have trended towards e-commerce and third-party logistics players, said Priyank Shah, head of fund management at Singapore-based Rava and its India-focused portfolio company Logicap.
“Available depth of labour pool on the manufacturing side in India is pretty small, and I think there’s a lot of room to play out there because India went on to become a services-led economy and technology services mainly,” Shah said. “So I think on the manufacturing side they were quite behind some of the other players, other markets in Asia. I think they’re trying to pick up just purely based on domestic consumption being a big part of it, foreign manufacturers trying to move base to India or diversify their base away from China to, say, Vietnam or India.”
Giants Pave the Way
After being perceived for decades as a hard real estate market for foreign capital to crack, India has progressed as global investment giants have helped to institutionalise the space, said Shah, whose Logicap portfolio spans 13.5 million square feet (1.3 million square metres), roughly half of that being with joint venture partner Mitsubishi Estate.
“I think it’s gone through two decades of evolution from an institutional real estate investing standpoint,” Shah told MTD TV. “You’ve had a few players come in and have got exits, and exits in markets which are emerging are always quite crucial and more to focus on. And some of the Blackstones and Brookfields of the world who came in early into India have now seen significant exits with stable double-digit returns.”
Ajay Sharma, managing director for valuation services at Colliers India, noted that few foreign investors are trying to acquire land and develop greenfield projects, primarily because acquiring land in the country is not straightforward.
“So that being a challenge, a lot of people have shied away from investing directly into the land,” Sharma said. “They prefer to buy stabilised assets. In fact, when Logos and ESR first arrived in India, they did try to go about doing greenfield developments with acquired land. But they did face a lot of headwinds on that and they decided that it’s better to acquire stabilised assets.”
Across the Indian Ocean, logistics builder and fund manager Equalbase and its investment management unit Northmod joined forces with Malaysian conglomerate Sunway to invest MYR 8 billion ($1.7 billion) in the development of a 5 million square foot logistics hub in Johor’s state capital of Johor Bahru.
“In Malaysia we have what we call a great legal framework,” said Northmod CEO Paul Lee. “It’s good actually to have a joint venture, so that a local partner can help you navigate around different state-level regulation. You can do it both ways, I think Malaysia is open for full 100 percent foreign-owned or joint ventures.”
Aussie Finale
Mingtiandi’s 2025 APAC Logistics Forum concludes Thursday with a one-hour panel discussion covering one of the world’s hottest industrial markets, Australia.
The MTD TV programme will feature Richard Stacker, industrial and logistics CEO at Charter Hall; Troy Bryant, founder and co-CEO of LogiSPACE; Robert McMickan, joint managing director of Hale Capital Partners; and James King, senior director of portfolio management at Barings.
The four guests will unpack an Australian logistics sector that continues to lure global investors after trades of warehouse assets surged 40 percent in 2024 to A$7.2 billion ($4.6 billion), with buyers from Down Under and overseas expected to expand that total by a further 38 percent in 2025, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
After the interview portion, Mingtiandi’s team will moderate a live Q&A session in which viewers can quiz the speakers on their market outlooks and get direct insights from some of the region’s top experts in the logistics space.
