World's wealthy still hungry for property

By Paul Hoskins

GENEVA (Reuters) - The wealthy have lost none of their appetite for property despite the market turmoil triggered by the sale of risky subprime mortgages in the United States, according to some of the world's top private bankers.

Clients of wealth managers are, however, on the lookout for the next big areas of growth and want products that will enable them to reduce their exposure to any one property or market.

"We're seeing heavy levels of investment in property in Hong Kong (and) throughout Asia," said Peter Flavel, global head of private banking at Standard Charetered (STAN.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). "You can't get office space in Singapore, you can't get it in Dubai."

Speaking at the Reuters Wealth Management Summit, Flavel said there was a "group of Asians that love real estate" and that their ardor showed no sign of fading. "They'd see the situation in America as specific to America and the situation in the UK as specific to the UK," he added.

Samir Raslan, head of Citibank's (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) wealth management operations in central & eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, said his clients also remained alive to potential opportunities in world real estate markets.

"We haven't seen any change in our clients," he told the summit held at Reuters offices in Geneva.

Nicolas Cagi Nicolau, global head of structured product solutions at SG Private Banking, said demand so far in 2007 had been particularly strong.

In Ireland, where fortunes have been made on the back of the country's decade-long property boom, a fast-cooling domestic market and recent global market turmoil may have had a short-term impact, but investors' love of property is intact.  Continued...