Black Spade Capital, the family office of Macau casino billionaire Lawrence Ho Yau-lung, has invested in IFCX, a Hong Kong-based real estate brokerage group that aims to pool at least US$5 billion of capital from Asian clients for investments in emerging markets.
IFCX operates Asian Bankers Club, a direct investor sales company, Knightsbridge Partners, an agent for developers, and Easy Pro, a letting and property-management agency that also provides global residency solutions.
“This partnership is great for us,” Dennis Tam, Black Spade president and CEO, said on Tuesday. “Investment in real estate in emerging markets makes sense”, he added, noting the venture’s focus on the Middle East, Vietnam and Thailand.
Ho is the chairman of Melco Resorts & Entertainment, one of the six casino concessionaires in Macau, as well as the son of the late gaming mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun. He has an estimated net worth of US$1.2 billion, according to Forbes. Black Spade earlier invested in Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast Auto.
The partnership would allow IFCX to tap into the family office ecosystem, according to Kingston Lai, its founder and CEO. There would also be plans to improve the utilisation of artificial intelligence (AI) to build intelligent platforms for digital transactions, predictive market analytics and investor engagement tools, he added.
“The emerging markets, such as the Middle East, Vietnam and Thailand, embody the essence of our partnership, [which is]stability, opportunity and global connectivity,” he said. With Black Spade’s backing, IFCX “is redefining how real estate is traded on a global scale, bridging institutional pathways and empowering individual investors”, he added.
IFCX employs about 80 in-house agents and services over 2,000 business-to-business agencies around the world. The group’s largest market is Hong Kong, with clients in the city making up between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of the total, according to Lai.
“Black Spade will be on our board,” said Lai. “It’s not just partnership but real investment coming from them.”
IFCX plans to form an “invitation only” club with an initial target of 200 ultra-high-net-worth individuals with assets of at least US$30 million. The club would give its members an opportunity to network or strike deals with ultra-wealthy individuals from other parts of the world, Lai said.
“These individuals are billionaires,” Lai said. “That is why we are keeping the number small. We want it to be very elite.”
