Keppel still reports its asset management fees and has yet to break out its revenue as the likes of Blackstone and CLI do. In 1Q2026, Keppel’s asset management fees rose 13% y-o-y to $108 million.
In a recent interview with The Edge Singapore, Craig Beattie, group CFO, Hongkong Land, was asked whether the group was heading towards an asset-light model. He says: “We study quite carefully the business model that we really want to become and it is not our intention to be solely asset-light. We want to continue to be an investor in real estate, we want to continue to be a developer, but we also want to be an asset manager.”
Similarly, Sydney-based Reini Otter, CEO, Frasers Property Industrial (FPI), one of FPL’s main business units, says: “There’s room for everyone. It really depends on the capital needs. The great thing about Frasers is that, over many years, it has been an attractive business model. If fund managers are asset-light, you would describe us as asset-lighter. We’re not all the way to the fund model, but our group CEO and the board have been very clear that we will bring in strategic capital to lighten the balance sheet somewhat, so we’re somewhere in the middle.”
Blackstone is the world’s largest asset manager, with US$1.3 trillion ($1.66 trillion) in assets under management (AUM) and $926 billion in fee-bearing AUM. It is followed closely by Brookfield Asset Management (BAM). These two entities have asset-light models that prioritise outsourcing and minimise ownership of physical assets, enhancing flexibility and scalability. In comparison, asset-heavy models invest heavily in owning and managing physical assets, offering greater control and potential long-term cost advantages. Asset-heavy models are viewed as providing greater control over customer experience and asset availability.
Investors typically value asset managers like BAM, Blackstone, CLI and, to an extent, Goodman using a mix of fee-related earnings multiples, AUM and FUM growth, and Enterprise value/Ebitda ratios. Although entities have different strategies at the micro level, both BAM and Blackstone, like CLI, are mainly asset managers. Brookfield trades at higher multiples due to its diversified infrastructure and renewable portfolio, while Blackstone’s scale in private equity — which has been checkered in the past five years — and real estate has also provided it relatively rich valuations.
Goodman Group is a stapled trust that merges a company and a trust so they operate as one entity listed on the ASX, while retaining the legal structures of both. Goodman, focused on logistics real estate and data centres, is a real estate investment manager (REIM) with an asset management arm, development arm and a REIT.
Brookfield Corp is more like Hongkong Land and FPI, which include asset management, on-balance-sheet assets and development.
See also: Hongkong Land turns asset-lighter in growth push
Frasers Property
FPI’s parent, Frasers Property (FPL), is both a developer and an owner of REITs, with FPL developing assets with the REIT as an “offtake” vehicle.
In Otter’s view: “How you manage capital is central to how you manage your portfolio. Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust [FLCT] is our preferred capital partner, supported by the REIT’s right of first refusal, and that relationship has real strategic logic. It gives FLCT access to a pipeline of prime assets we develop, which they would otherwise have to source on an open-market, competitive basis and that is fundamentally the value proposition of a sponsored REIT. It also allows our balance sheet to have a partner to take the assets out on known terms in a very transparent, independent, arms-length process. That alignment really matters. Beyond FLCT, we do look at the full range of capital channels, and that depends on the market, the environment, the structure, and the partner at the time.”
In April 2025, FPI announced its first capital partnership in Australia with an investment vehicle sponsored by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing (MSREI). Named the Frasers Prime Logistics Venture, the 50-50 joint venture covers a portfolio of eight major industrial assets located in Sydney and Brisbane. Spanning a total gross floor area (GFA) of 188,000 sq m, the portfolio is valued at approximately A$600 million ($549 million). It is fully leased, with 11 tenants.
Last October, FPI’s partnership with MSREI expanded to include a portfolio of nine industrial assets from FPI. Located across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, the assets span approximately 163,000 sqm in gross floor area and are valued at around A$500 million. The expansion introduced a newly established joint venture, Frasers Logistics Partnership, which will hold four assets. In comparison, five assets, including one under development, will be added to the Frasers Prime Logistics Venture announced in April 2025.
“The Morgan Stanley relationship is a good example of what institutional appetite is for assets of our quality when the conditions are right. We aren’t running a single-channel model; we’re running a platform with multiple exit options. That is the right discipline for a portfolio of this scale. We think of FPI as industrial and logistics specialists across the full value chain, so that’s everything from development all the way through to portfolio management. To acquire, develop or add value, recycle, and reinvest is very important, and it shapes what we feel, where we build,” Otter explains.
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He adds that FPI doesn’t plan to “own everything in perpetuity. We just want to build great assets, attract institutional partners who see the same long-term value in the sector that we do”.
Homegrown asset managers
In 2021, the listed CapitaLand was split into two: the development business was privatised as CapitaLand Development, while the listed business was renamed CapitaLand Investment (CLI). Both are subsidiaries of CLA Real Estate (CLA). In CLI’s 2021 scheme document, the offeror, CLA Real Estate, cited higher capital productivity, efficiency and returns as the rationale for the restructure.
According to the scheme document issued in 2021, investors “will continue to retain exposure to the benefits of the privatised development business of the company (CLA) through CLI. CLI will retain the benefit of being part of the ecosystem with the privatised CapitaLand. In part to preserve and sustain the ecosystem, a reciprocal rights of first refusal agreement has been entered into between CLI and the company (CLA)“.
“It is envisaged that the company will continue, through its development arm, supporting CLI through its strong development capabilities through participating and collaborating in the development or redevelopment of projects within CLI, as required and appropriate, as well as in providing to CLI development or project management services as CLI may require in respect of any property investments held within CLI. CLI will also be able to tap on a key pipeline source of investment opportunities through the company as and when its development projects complete and are available for sale to augment the growth of CLI’s FUM, which would in turn drive FRE to CLI,” the 2021 scheme document had stated.
True to form, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT) announced the proposed acquisition of Paragon Mall from Cuscaden Peak, a joint venture between CLA and Mapletree Investments, for $3.9 billion. This acquisition will require an EGM for independent unitholders to vote, which is scheduled for later this year.
Keppel loses conglomerate structure
Before CapitaLand’s 2021 split, Keppel — then still known as Keppel Corp — had announced Vision 2030 in 2020.
In May 2023, Keppel announced the removal of its conglomerate structure, creating a simplified, horizontally integrated model comprising fund management, investment and operating platforms. To drive the group’s growth, Keppel has announced plans to scale its AUM to $200 billion by 2030 and to $100 billion by the end of this year.
“Keppel will continue to pursue an asset-light business model, harnessing technology to create sustainability solutions that can both yield attractive returns to investors and drive the company’s growth,” Keppel had said.
Part of the change involved merging Keppel Offshore & Marine with Sembcorp Marine. In return, Keppel received a 56% equity interest in the combined entity (Seatrium) and $500 million in cash. Keppel distributed 49% of these Seatrium shares directly to its own shareholders. On April 1, Keppel divested its remaining 5% stake in Seatrium, realising a total cash value of $430 million, including dividends from Seatrium in 2025.
Keppel still owns 13 legacy rigs, of which six are completed and in service. On May 18, Keppel’s group CEO Loh Chin Hua said the company planned to divest these rigs to offset the failed monetisation of M1.
In an April report, Corporate Monitor offers remarks on Keppel’s financial performance following a deep dive. For anyone doing a deep dive, Keppel’s many types of attributable profit make it challenging to compare Keppel’s performance since its Vision 2030 was announced.
JP Morgan’s analysts Mervin Song and Terence Khi have remained positive on Keppel’s transformation into a real asset manager. A report in October last year says that Keppel is Singapore’s only vertically integrated digital infrastructure platform. As it loses its conglomerate structure and continues to pivot toward an asset-light model, JPMorgan believes its recurring income base can only rise. “We are optimistic on New Keppel, a global asset manager with expertise and a robust execution track record across the digital infrastructure value chain, as well as value unlock, a key theme in Singapore,” Song and Khi state in their Oct 2025 report.
On May 21, following the failed M1 sale, the JPMorgan analysts reiterated that: “Keppel’s pivot towards becoming a global asset manager remains on track and earnings should benefit from the ramp-up at the new Sakra plant.” The Keppel Sakra Cogen Plant, the first hydrogen-compatible cogeneration plant on Jurong Island, is scheduled to be commissioned in June.
During CLI’s FY2025 results briefing in February, group CEO Lee Chee Koon had said: “The asset management part of our business is very capital efficient and is about raising third-party capital so that the fees that we are earning will be like a coupon clipper for investors. It is perpetual capital. You don’t have to worry about the volatility of the real estate market. And that’s what we are transforming the business model into. The potential to build a large FUM business in China using third-party capital exists. The strategy is to use less of our own money to grow the business in China and make it a fee business.”
